Objects can have their own history. At a visit to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, I saw this painting on display.
The painting is of Catrin - also known as Kathryn - of Berain, an interesting lady who lived in the Tudor period. The portrait of her on display in Cardiff was bought (legally, no plundering in this case) by the infamous Hermann Goering in 1940. The painting was retrieved by the adults in 1945, and returned to the dealer who had originally sold it. More of the painting's fascinating story can be found on this fantastic BBC page.
Other pictures of Catrin can be found on the BBC your paintings website (I know, I know, one of my favourites!) here and also here.
Showing posts with label your paintings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label your paintings. Show all posts
Tuesday, 25 March 2014
Monday, 1 July 2013
Looking Into The Past
Another day, another travel around the BBC's your paintings website.
I came across this fabulous image - A Barber's Shop, 1784 by Henry William Bunbury. Bunbury was a caricaturist - and certainly seems to display a sense of humour, at least as far as the dogs fighting over the wig are concerned.
About 40 years before this image, in 1745, the roles of barber and surgeon were split - before this a visit to a barber's was a bit of a one-stop shop as far as your physical well-being was concerned. I think I'm using the phrase 'well-being' a bit loosely, but you get the picture.
Barbers still continued to offer such off-putting sounding services as 'teeth-scraping' however, and seeing this picture has reminded me of an Old Bailey case I came across a little while ago from 1895 concerning two men - Paul Baron and Henry William Browett, who apparently were using a combination of fraud and intimidation to make customers pay for a teeth scraping/scaling service that they didn't want.
The witnesses to the case included such diverse customers as the vicar of Ebbw Vale and a man who the person recording the case felt the need to tell us was 'a Hindoo.' Both Baron and Browett were found guilty and sentenced to several months worth of hard labour.
I came across this fabulous image - A Barber's Shop, 1784 by Henry William Bunbury. Bunbury was a caricaturist - and certainly seems to display a sense of humour, at least as far as the dogs fighting over the wig are concerned.
About 40 years before this image, in 1745, the roles of barber and surgeon were split - before this a visit to a barber's was a bit of a one-stop shop as far as your physical well-being was concerned. I think I'm using the phrase 'well-being' a bit loosely, but you get the picture.
Barbers still continued to offer such off-putting sounding services as 'teeth-scraping' however, and seeing this picture has reminded me of an Old Bailey case I came across a little while ago from 1895 concerning two men - Paul Baron and Henry William Browett, who apparently were using a combination of fraud and intimidation to make customers pay for a teeth scraping/scaling service that they didn't want.
The witnesses to the case included such diverse customers as the vicar of Ebbw Vale and a man who the person recording the case felt the need to tell us was 'a Hindoo.' Both Baron and Browett were found guilty and sentenced to several months worth of hard labour.
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Looking Into the Past
I've just been browsing through the fantastic BBC 'Your Paintings' site - well worth a look, some amazing pictures held by local councils etc. around the country. Plus, technically these paintings belong to the public - always nice.
'Remember Scarborough' by Edith Kemp-Welch really caught my eye - well, it's quite striking after all, given the amount of red in the picture, but there were also a couple of other things that got me thinking...
Firstly, I couldn't quite tell if this was propaganda or not at first - since looking at it, I've found out that the image was used on an enlistment poster, so I guess it was. At first though, while it was obviously patriotic, I couldn't really tell if this was from 'the establishment,' or not. What do you think?
Secondly, why Scarborough? Turns out Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough were raided by the German navy in 1914. You learn something new every day.
Another thing that struck me was that it was painted by a woman - not unheard of in this period, though not common either, particularly as the stereotypical war artist is a man. There's a brief video from the IWM last year on the subject of women war artists here.
If your ancestors were from Scarborough, maybe they witnessed the raiding - could you imagine that? Or maybe there's a woman artist hiding in the branches of your family tree, you never know.
See you next time!
'Remember Scarborough' by Edith Kemp-Welch really caught my eye - well, it's quite striking after all, given the amount of red in the picture, but there were also a couple of other things that got me thinking...
Firstly, I couldn't quite tell if this was propaganda or not at first - since looking at it, I've found out that the image was used on an enlistment poster, so I guess it was. At first though, while it was obviously patriotic, I couldn't really tell if this was from 'the establishment,' or not. What do you think?
Secondly, why Scarborough? Turns out Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough were raided by the German navy in 1914. You learn something new every day.
Another thing that struck me was that it was painted by a woman - not unheard of in this period, though not common either, particularly as the stereotypical war artist is a man. There's a brief video from the IWM last year on the subject of women war artists here.
If your ancestors were from Scarborough, maybe they witnessed the raiding - could you imagine that? Or maybe there's a woman artist hiding in the branches of your family tree, you never know.
See you next time!
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