My greatgrandmother’s souvenirs…
The reason I’m so into landscapes on ebay is that I’m looking for a painting similar to this one of my mother’s (which was my great-grandmother’s — a souvenir from a trip to Italy). My mother refuses to part with it (with good reason) and so I’m hunting for one of my own! (See below — sorry for the horrid photo and flash marks… its an old snapshot). From my unofficial research on ebay, it seems that these painting must have been realatively common and inexpensive at the time — there seems to be a genre of “tourism” painters — I suppose much like today when you go to Paris or New York and there are people selling you photos and paintings/posters on every corner. I love the idea that there is such continuity of human desire to remember a trip via a painting/photo/poster. As much as we change we stay the same. As I hunt, I’m finding some lovely landscapes that are less in the tourism genre (and of course cost more). Anyone else know more about tourism water colors?
