That Is Priceless

Book excerpt: It all started when Melcher stumbled upon a postcard in a museum gift shop for Peter Paul Rubens's The Finding of Erichthonius. Inspiration struck, and Melcher scrambled for a Post-it note and scribbled down what he thought was a more appropriate title: Worst Secret Santa Gift Ever. And with that, That Is Priceless was born. More than 150 images are gathered inside the book's full-color pages--from Courbet's The Desperate Man reimagined as Johnny Depp Realizing He Left the Oven On to Degas's Portrait of the Artist James Tissot retitled as Portrait of the Artist in Mom Jeans. Part art history, part parody, and entirely laugh-out-loud funny, That Is Priceless gives musty old paintings a 21st-century pop culture face-lift, enlivening the artist's canvas with playful comic irreverence.