I inherited these four watercolours from my husband. They were painted around 1900 by his mother, whom I never met, as she had died only weeks before I first met him in 1946. The pictures stayed packed away in boxes until after he died, but I have brought them out to see the light of day, and had them framed as a set.
The artist herself named the top two, and I made a trip to Whitby to visit the scenes myself - a rather eerie but somehow romantic experience, to 'meet' one's mother-in-law in such a way, 60 years after getting to know her younger son, and several years after his death.
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| Sandsend, Whitby |
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| Arguments Yard, Whitby |
The second two pictures, below, were un-named, but I began a search of the web to see if I could confirm my feeling that they too are Whitby scenes. I found old photographs that seemed to be looking past Whitby Old Town Hall to Market Place, seen from a point very similar to the painting on the left. The one on the right shows a ruin on a hill which could well be the old Abbey.
I shall be immensely grateful if anyone is able to confirm these two last locations for me, so that I can name them all and hang them as a group on my diningroom wall.
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| Whitby harbour and Abbey ruins? |
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| Now confirmed as the view from Church St, Whitby, looking past the old Market Place on the right towards the River Esk |
12 comments:
What wonderful pictures, Judith. So wonderful that you can "meet" this special lady at these places, so many years later.
annie
Lovely to get such a quick response from you Annie, when this is my first real post for, oh, it must be a year or two. The longer one leaves it the harder it is to get back in.
And the whole system has changed since I last posted, and I can't make it work for me yet. There's always a new learning curve waiting in this technological world!
Not only memorabilia but very attractive and well executed paintings. Did she leave any more?
Hullo Beryl, it's good to have a first-time visitor to my re-started blog. I visited your blogs, and I think the Holidailies project would be a good one for me, but I don't think I could handle the discipline!
Yes, there are a fair number of other paintings by my mother-in-law, some neveer framed,and some in the very dark heavy wood frames of the early 20th century(which pretty much overpower the watercolours in my view). I was able to send a number to my husband's sister who lives in Vancouver, and the rest are stored in my 'archive room' (which used to be a guest nursery for grandchildren), until somebody else wishes to claim them.
What a great blog. I love the pictures and I love what you said in your 'about me' about wanting to leave your footprints behind. It's kind of why I started my blog, too.
beneaththeelmtree.blogspot.com
The bottom left painting looks like Whitby to me.
See link to Google street map of where I think it is.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.487774,-0.611988,3a,75y,296.48h,87.11t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1suxzYQUYuUtArxTKTznW2jw!2e0
Thanks for your comment, Anonymous.
The link you gave me does not work if I put it straight into my search engine. And as I am not familiar with Google Maps,I am still trying to find out how to get to the spot from their website. I shall go on trying and if I'm not successful,I shall consult my son who is my IT guru next time he comes. It would be great to have confirmation. I wonder if you live around there.
copy and paste the link into your internet address bar not a search engine and it should work.
If not, go to maps.google.co.uk and search: 151 chruch street, whitby
then click and drag the little orange man onto the location and have a look around and you should see what appears to me as being the same as that painting.
p.s. I'm originally from Darlington so used to visit Whitby but now live in Aberdeen.
Thank you so much, Sam, that's done it for me. Putting the link in the address bar only took me straight back to this page of my blog. But searching Google Maps for an address, with the aid of the little orange man, got me to the Market Place - the pillared building on the right of the painting - just a little way up the road.
I'm now quite confident my guess was right,and I have the added benefit of having got to grips with Google Maps at last. I'm so pleased you dropped by. :)
this is nice..!
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