What’s Happening: Director Emerald Fennell smartly employs the resplendent, ultra-rare pottery of Bernard Palissy as the film’s scheming protagonist hatches his deranged plan to unravel a troubled family’s lavish English country estate from the inside out.

The Download: Saltburn is many things—a laceration of polite society’s insidious inner workings, a deeply unsettling tale of sociopathic longing, and a wicked psych thriller about fucking one’s way up to the top and reveling in the post-coital bloodshed. In the film, the well-off Oxford freshman Felix (played by Jacob Elordi) takes pity on a seemingly less fortunate peer Oliver (Barry Keoghan), and invites him to spend the summer at Saltburn, his family’s sprawling English countryside estate. No spoilers, but Oliver obsessively devours the old-world opulence, particularly in scenes that involve slurping used bathwater and having sex with a grave pile. He stops at nothing to ingratiate himself in the rarefied ways of the wealthy.

Watch closely, and the film is also a study in 16th-century French ceramics. One key plot line involves Bernard Palissy, the 16th-century French Huguenot ceramist known for making lavishly decorated oval platters that place cast models of small animals among lush vegetation. In one scene, Oliver boasts about his Palissy knowledge to Felix’s incredulous but impressed father. Viewers only see the platter for a split second, but Oliver then cleverly employs it as a way to remove Farleigh, Felix’s arrogant cousin, from Saltburn by framing him in a hilarious scheme. “He sent an email to Sotheby’s to say he’d ‘come by’ some Palissy plate,” Felix says. “I mean, the idiot! He’d had to have known that Dad went to school with the chairman!”

Legitimate Palissy plates are so rare that Sotheby’s likely would have dashed to Saltburn upon receiving that email. After struggling for 16 years to imitate Chinese porcelain, reducing his family to poverty, and burning furniture and floorboards to keep his house warm, Palissy pioneered the type of rusticware that now bears his name. An avid natural scientist fascinated by discoveries of new plants following the era’s European colonization, he arrayed fish, snakes, and foliage on his plates and used watery, lead-based glazes to simulate lifelike garden scenes. His style took off, wowing the likes of Queen Catherine de’ Medici, who gave him an official title in her court: “the king’s inventor of rustic figurines.”

Palissy’s style spawned innumerable knock-offs during his lifetime that continued for centuries, but many of his works no longer exist. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the only documented work by his hand was a destroyed grotto in the garden of Tuileries. Museums cautiously attribute plates in his style to “followers of Palissy,” though a museum dedicated to his work exists in France. “It requires a real eye to be able to tell a real Palissy, and it requires seeing a lot of it,” Seema Rao, a museum expert and art podcaster, says on TikTok. “In other words, you have to be in the know—a perfect trick for somebody who’s of society.”

In Their Own Words: “[Palissy] created squirmy works that looked different than everyone else. He’s containing life in a way that feels almost fraught,” Rao continues. “I suspect that’s a symbol of [Saltburn’s] story. Everyone is miserable and completely fraught, but you can’t look away.”

Surface Says: We’re getting major The Garden of Earthly Delights vibes.

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An intoxicating fusion of art, design, and gastronomy is on the menu at Gallina, an intimate new eatery nestled in the Acropolis-adjacent Koukai neighborhood in Athens. Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis, known for cross-cultural sensibilities as the founders of LOT Office for Architecture and Objects of Common Interest, crafted unfussy interiors with ample breathing room thanks to soaring steel-framed windows that forge an airy ambiance. Red marble countertops and handsome terrazzo flooring by Vasilis Papageorgiou brighten the mood even more, as do Petaloti and Trampoukis signatures like the sinuous Tube Light snaking up the wall to sturdy dining chairs draped with semi-transparent pink gel that honor owner Philippos Tsangrides.

His art collection adds personal touches to an intimate 38-person dining room. The pièce de résistance is easily a hand-knotted wool-and-silk tapestry depicting a sunset-hued nature scene by Jannis Varelas, but don’t miss Olga Migliaressi-Phoca’s cheeky “sexist” exit sign that’s sure to beckon second glances. The menu, meanwhile, sees award-winning Chef Pavlos Kiriakis gracefully fuse Greek, French, and Scandinavian influences. He combines high-end gastronomy with a comfort food sensibility through dishes like pithivier pie with pigeon, foie-gras, eel, and mushrooms, grilled turbot with Assyrtiko wine and caper sauce, and a caviar-topped Basque cheesecake. Pair them with a natural wine selected by sommelier Giannis Gougoutoudis.

Authorne founder Rachel Bu knows a thing or two about transformation. In 2022, she converted her visual arts studio into a fine jewelry workshop and has scarcely looked back. Then, this past September, she launched Authorne, a collection of one-of-a-kind pieces that blur the lines between accessories and wearable sculpture, with a debut exhibition at new Gowanus creative hub Powerhouse Arts. At Authorne, Bu instills her creations with symbolic narratives that seem to be pulled from an ancient mythology. She’s now undertaking her second collection, collaborating with creative minds to instill new motifs and stories into her multilayered works.

Our weekly roundup of the internet’s most preposterous headlines, from the outrageous to the outright bizarre.

Andrew Scott Halted Hamlet Soliloquy After Theatregoer Used Laptop to Email [The Guardian]

Chinese Chess Master Accused of Cheating Using Remote-Controlled Vibrating Anal Beads [Boing Boing]

Slim Jim’s Stolen “Fast Meat” Car Is Recovered Near Chicago [Audacy]

Retired Couple Sells Everything to Live on Cruise Ships Forever [My Modern Met]

Cecil the Dog Ate His Family’s $4,000 Cash. They Got All But $500 Back. [Washington Post]

Terror on Eight Hairy Legs: Largest Male Specimen of World’s Most Venomous Spider Found [L.A. Times]

Hershey’s Sued Over Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins Not Being “Cute” Enough [Delish]

When: Until March 17

Where: Stalla Madulain, Switzerland

What: A barn-turned-gallery located 15 minutes outside of St. Moritz, in the sleepy mountain village of Madulain, is about as antithetical to the bustling city center art scene as possible—and it’s all the better for it. There, the Swiss-born artist makes something of a homecoming with his exhibition of sculpture, videos, installation, painting, and paper works that engage with Stalla Madulain’s past as an agricultural barn. Vitrines made of manure, wool, hay, and horsehair recall the structure’s humble origins, while untitled paint on paper and papyrus works forge a connection with the surrounding landscape.

Sixteen years after breaking ground, the Fontainebleau Las Vegas rolled out the “Bleau Carpet” to welcome its first guests for a glitz-filled celebration, including a preview of the property’s restaurants, a ceremonial rolling of the first dice at the 150,000-square-foot casino, and live entertainment all night. The Bleaulive Theater was christened by Paul Anka, a veteran performer of the original Fontainebleau Miami, followed by the headliner, Justin Timberlake. Late-night guests then hit LIV Las Vegas for a rowdy DJ set by Peggy Gou.

When was it? Dec. 13

Where was it? The Fontainebleau, Las Vegas

Who was there? Lenny Kravitz, Sylvester Stallone, Tommy Hilfiger, Paris Brosnan, Aaron Paul, Bryan Cranston, Nikolai Haas, and more.

Duplex is a New York–based design boutique engaged with the world’s most iconic design brands, groundbreaking talents, and master artisans, all of whom offer a surrealistic take on form and function. Its founder, Patrizio Chiarparini, brings a curatorial approach to Duplex’s roster with the goal of providing clients with a sophisticated, unexpected range of pieces.

Surface Says: Chiarparini goes the extra mile—literally—to offer one-of-a-kind design objects and exhibitions, making Duplex an international destination for those lucky enough to be in the know.

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