T Introduces: A Chilean Painter’s Alluring Depictions of Debauchery

There are several paintings scattered around Pablo Barba’s studio, at the end of a far-flung industrial block in Long Island City, Queens. One is of a young woman in a short floral dress gazing wistfully, even tragically, at the plumber fixing her kitchen sink. In another, a different woman, in a pink nightgown, stands at her front door accepting a pizza box from a delivery guy as if it were the newborn Christ. Yet another woman in a third painting is topless and asleep in a lounge chair by a pool, white doves flying above her. In the background, a pool boy averts his eyes as he drags a net across the water’s surface to skim off the debris.

Barba, 38, was born in Santiago, Chile, and grew up in the waning days of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, when there weren’t many opportunities for artists. His grandparents and parents were architects but, he says, “everyone wanted to be a painter. The next-best discipline in a place where being a painter wasn’t really an option was architecture. When I said, ‘Mom and Dad, I’m going to be a painter,’ they were excited.”

The country had neither a notable museum collection nor an art market, which was both limiting and liberating. Barba had difficulty finding certain art supplies, but he was free to paint whatever he wanted. He moved to New York in 2014 to enroll in the M.F.A. program at Columbia and spent a lot of time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was drawn to 17th-century Dutch paintings, particularly those in a Baroque style known as geselschapje, which means “merry company.” Comedic works, they depict grotesque, often ominous acts of consumption in various forms, possibly, Barba says, as “a Protestant reaction to ‘The Last Supper.’”

Of considerable influence to him is Jan Steen — seen in a self-portrait at the center of the masterpiece “The Dissolute Household” (circa 1663-64) bearing an alcoholic’s blush and affectionately tickling the hand of his maid, who with her other hand is pouring Steen’s suitably bosomed and incapacitated wife an overflowing glass of wine. Barba likewise tends to concentrate on moments where decadence tips over into chaos: The paintings are funny, embarrassing, empathetic, ugly and appealing, all at once. His main focus is, to borrow the artist’s own phrase in describing Steen, “a group of people gathered around a table in, basically, debauchery.”

“There’s something about Pablo’s work that makes you want to vomit into your mouth,” says Adam Cohen, a director at Gagosian Gallery and the proprietor of New York’s A Hug From the Art World, where Barba had a solo show in 2022 and will have another in the fall. “Even though I feel I am part of the thing Pablo’s painting, I also don’t want to be part of the thing that Pablo’s painting.” — M.H. Miller

Photo assistant: Rafael Rios

The Thing: Bulgari Gives a Diamond-and-Emerald Necklace Its Signature Motif

From ruby butterfly brooches to bracelets in the shape of leaping panthers with sapphire eyes, fine jewelry has been inspired by the animal kingdom for centuries. But perhaps no other creature is so perfectly suited to adorn the body as the snake, its sinuous form at once alluring and dangerous. A recurrent motif in jewelry since ancient times, the serpent symbolized health to the Greeks and eternal love to the Victorians. Bulgari, founded in Rome in 1884 by the silversmith Sotirio Bulgari, has long explored the power of the reptile’s undulating curves: The house debuted its first gold watch made to resemble an abstract snake 75 years ago. Since then, its designers have come to interpret the Serpenti motif more literally and with daring aplomb. Case in point: this new high jewelry necklace, in white gold with onyx embellishments and a combination of more than 90 buff-top emeralds and pavé-set diamonds that tumble and twist. Chasing its tail, green eyes aglow, it is intended to encircle the neck, boldly, forever. Bulgari Serpenti High Jewelry necklace, price on request, (800) 285-4274. — Nancy Hass

Photo assistant: Alice Beltrami

On Majorca, a New Inn With a Working Farm

About nine years ago, the British photographer Kate Bellm, 36, and her partner, the Mexican artist and horticulturist Edgar Lopez, 40, were living in Berlin when they decided to escape city life for a while on the Spanish island of Majorca. After three months in the coastal village of Deia, they knew they wanted to stay. “I was blown away by the Tramuntana mountains — the fields of wildflowers, the old olive groves and wild goats,” says Bellm. “People think you should come to Majorca for the beach but, for me, it’s all about the mountain villages.” The couple bought a house not far from the historic town of Soller and in 2021 purchased a nearby 16th-century country estate, which they’ve now turned into a small inn. Opening next month, Hotel Corazón sits on 12 acres planted with ancient palm, jacaranda, olive and citrus trees; the property is also home to a working farm. Inside, the rooms are an eclectic mix of fur rugs; large, egg-shaped ceramic bathtubs from Studio Loho; fish-eye mirrors; and four-poster beds. None of the 12 guest rooms — three more are in the works — are the same, but almost all have sweeping views of the terraced mountains and the gardens, where visitors can dine under the stars. Rooms from about $490 a night, hotelcorazon.com. — Gisela Williams

Loro Piana’s Moment in the Sun

Loro Piana is not a name generally associated with the beach. Founded 99 years ago in the Northern Italian town of Trivero in Piedmont, the brand is a mainstay of wintertime luxury, known for its multi-ply cashmere knitwear, featherweight vicuña scarves and tailored wool overcoats. The house’s latest offering, however, has a sunnier outlook. Inspired by the Mediterranean seaside, the Blossom bag — a roomy, leather-handled tote — is meant to be carried both on and off the sand. It’s not, however, a complete departure from the Loro Piana tradition. Woven from jute cord, ribbons and strips of two different printed fabrics, the Blossom has the softness and variegated texture of a hand-knit sweater, complete with intricately crocheted trim. — Jenny Comita

The Chefs Uncovering the Fig Leaf

The word “fig” appears dozens of times in the Old Testament; its leaf, in comparison, is associated with prudery. But recently, chefs and bartenders have been teasing flavor from the greens alone. At Osip in Somerset, England, chefs dehydrate and blitz them, then use the powder to flavor ice cream. Fig leaf oil — made by blanching and blending the foliage in neutral oil, then straining out the solids — is spooned over each scoop, adding a “deep green, aromatic quality,” says the chef Dan Byrne, 25, who forages the ingredient from the surrounding neighborhood. Fig leaves “are not something you often see in the market,” says Sylvan Mishima Brackett, 47, the chef and owner of Izakaya Rintaro in San Francisco. He relies on his garden in Oakland for his supply, which he uses to wrap sake-spritzed local trout before grilling it. In London, the chef Claire Ptak, the owner of Violet Cakes and author of “Love Is a Pink Cake,” out this month, makes what she calls “figgy peaches,” swaddling the halved fruits — their center dimples filled with frangipane — in fig leaves and then searing them on the grill. The leaves “impart this coconut flavor,” she says. For her part, Margot Lecarpentier, 36, the owner of the cocktail bar Combat in Paris, makes low-carbon-footprint tropical drinks, substituting homemade fig leaf-infused liquor — which she describes as “bright, with a silkiness” — for imported coconut. Her extremely exclusive, hyperlocal source: her parents’ yard. — Lauren Joseph

Watch Report: Timepieces That Make a Splashy Summer Statement

Retouching: Anonymous Retouch. Photo assistant: Karl Leitz. Set designer’s assistant: Erin Kelly Meuchner