The Terrifying Toes of John the Baptist

I took a meander through some of the collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a friend recently after seeing the amazing Alexander McQueen exhibit and somehow found myself in the gallery of Spanish art from 1500-1700.  There I came across a pair of rather peculiar feet attached to a relief of John the Baptist (left; click to enlarge).  While I'm all in favor of prehensile toes -- during my misspent youth, I taught myself to solve a "Rubik's Pyramid" with mine -- these toes seemed somewhat overlong and a little bit disturbing.  Especially the second toe on the left foot.  I spent some time studying my own toes, and they are not overly-long or uncanny-looking at all.  Am I just imagining that there is something a little off about these feet?  Is this something common in men's feet?  Did the artist copy his own toes?  Do saints have mutant feet?

On my way out of the museum, we came across some other unusual feet, this time in the form of a couple of fifth-century lamps, shown at left (click to enlarge).

I was and am undecided as to whether the grubby extra-long prehensile toes of a saint are more disturbing than the idea of small household goods in the shape of severed body parts.

This odd coincidence led my companion to suggest that I could organize an entire museum trip around searching out and photographing peculiarly long-toed feet, sort of like the way my lightning-fast trip through the San Diego Zoo a few years ago became focused on black and white fauna.  There are plenty of parts of the Metropolitan Museum that I've never seen, since I usually come in for a special exhibit and then wander around without any particular plan until I get tired.  Is it actually full of long-toed bare feet or are these a statistically significant percentage of them?  Do I really want to know badly enough to spend a day methodically surveying the Met for feet?

Maybe...

Comments

[Serge Broom]

the idea of small household goods in the shape of severed body parts

Tea for toe,
And toe for tea,
Hewing me,
Hand me and hewe.

[Serge Broom]

As for mutant feet, this reminds me that "X-men: First Class" will soon be in theaters near you, and that it'll feature my favorite mutant.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Tea for toe (etc.)

*carefully scoots several feet to the left and pretends not to know this person*

[Serge]

Humph!

[Serge]

To think I gave you the best ears of my life...

[Neil W]

If you're going to comment here Serge, you have to toe the line.

[Serge]

Susan could nail me with a stern eye.