And he’s supposed to be the humble one!
Giants quarterback Eli Manning keeps a striking portrait of himself — brashly titled “Annointed” — in his huge art collection.
“He would appear to be anointed, in the parlance of our Protestant religious fables and myths,” said Mississippi-born artist and family friend William Dunlap, who misspelled the word — with an extra “n”— in gold leaf.
“It wasn’t intentional,” Dunlap said of the spelling fumble. “There’s no secret message there.”
Dunlap, 69, said the painting’s title refers to Manning’s bloodlines — father Archie quarterbacked the Saints for a decade, and future Hall of Fame brother Peyton is Denver’s signal-caller.
Eli also starred at the University of Mississippi, where Charlie Conerly and Glynn Griffing also played before being drafted by the Giants — making him the “third in the trinity,” said Dunlap, who gave the painting to Manning as a gift after the QB bought an early work he did of Conerly. “He was gracious and thanked me profusely,” Dunlap said.
“Annointed” was shipped to New Jersey, where Manning lives during football season, Dunlap noted.
The Renaissance Manning’s art hoard also includes a depiction of the Williams Brothers Store — a Mississippi market opened in 1907 by Manning’s great-grandfather and great-great-uncle. The allegorical image includes six hounds, five of them meant to represent members of the Manning clan — parents Archie and Olivia, and brothers Cooper, Peyton and Eli, Dunlap said.
Two of those “dogs” will square off Sunday at MetLife Stadium when Eli leads the Giants against brother Peyton’s Broncos.
Manning isn’t the only New York athlete with selfies on the wall.
Yankee Alex Rodriguez had two portraits of himself as a half-man/half-horse centaur hanging above his bed, an ex-fling once said.
But the Big Blue QB’s tastes are more refined — his collection includes abstract impressionist Ida Kohlmeyer, and Theora Hamblett, a Mississippi artist whose work has hung in the Museum of Modern Art and in the home of Nelson Rockefeller.
“Not all athletes are jocks,” Dunlap said.