The first incident.
It all started probably in September 1985, when the British newspaper The Sun was approached by Ron's and May Halley's spouses from Rotherham. The British decided to tell the journalists the story that had happened to them. According to the couple, her house had recently been burned down for an unknown reason, but a black charred wall left a reproduction of "Crying Boy" almost untouched by fire. The brother of the head of the family worked as a firefighter and not only confirmed this information but also noticed that portraits with a red child are found intact in other burned houses. The staff of the newspaper conducted their investigation. It turned out that two months earlier one printing plant had printed more than fifty thousand copies of the paintings, which quickly dispersed in the workers of northern England. The journalists found out that during this time there were more than forty fires in the houses where the painting was hung, and each time the work turned out to be intact as if the flames deliberately did not touch the portrait.
Agiotage
The article published by The Sun was sensational. After reading it, many British people started calling the editorial office, claiming that they had bought the painting too, and they also had fires. One man said he had deliberately bought a reproduction and tried to burn it in the fireplace, but the portrait, after lying for an hour in the fire, was not even slightly burned. The excitement surrounding the "Weeping Boy" was so great that the South Yorkshire Fire Department made an official statement explaining that there was no mysticism: they said there were too many reproductions, and statistically there was nothing unusual about the fact that the paintings of the sullen child sometimes ended up in the houses where the fires were taking place.
"We burned the paintings".
The owners of The Sun had to make a statement, too. Newspapers reported that they were fed up with the readers' calls and agreed to have everyone send them a copy of the painting. A week later, the editorial office was swamped with thousands of portraits of the "Crying Boy". Editor Kelvin Mackenzie, who turned out to be a superstitious man, demanded that the paintings be quickly destroyed. Sometime later, the newspaper published a new article, which stated that all the copies of the canvas were burned out of town. However, many Britons did not believe this, including because the article did not include photos of the mass burning of paintings.
A fire-hazardous gift
Almost all the firefighters also turned out to be superstitious, and the picture was presented to them as a joke presentation. People who claimed that there was no connection between the portrait and the fires refused such gifts. Some said that the painting would not suit their interior, others claimed that they did not like painting at all, while others did not even mention the reasons for their refusal.
Where did the roots come from?
The original portrait was painted in the 1950s. According to a popular legend, Giovanni Bragolin was posed by his own son. The artist, whose fatherly qualities were very far from ideal, could not make the offspring cry, and then he began to burn matches in the face of the boy. The child, who had suffered from fear of fire, immediately cried out and shouted at his parent: "May you burn yourself! Apparently, the young modeler unconsciously put a curse on his rubbing.
It is noteworthy that this picture - the most famous of the 27 paintings by Giovanni Bragolina, depicting crying boys. The painter has created a series called "Gypsy children", and all these works of art showcase young children in tears. It is not known whether the other paintings in the series are cursed, but one thing is certain: "The weeping boy" is not as simple as it may seem at first glance, and even the most skeptics should not bring his reproduction to their homes.