Family tree discovery

[Doctor Phibes]

Sorry, dupe - I got so excited I posted it twice

[Mik]

Hmmm…like the dog. What’s the provenance on the great grandad?

[Renauda]

Both are very well done. Miniatures with their fine details from past eras amaze me. Your great grandfather certainly had the gift of bringing the portrait to life. Did he also do large scale portraits?

[George K]

Unclear to me. How did you determine that picture is an ancestor?

[Doctor Phibes]

@Mik said in Family tree discovery:

Hmmm…like the dog. What’s the provenance on the great grandad?

He was a professional portrait painter - he managed to raise 7 kids into a middle-class lifestyle in London, so he must have done pretty well out of it - I knew two of his children as elderly ladies when I was very young - my dad's mother and auntie. I've been unable to track down any other paintings, although there's reference to one in The National Army Museum.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in Family tree discovery:

Unclear to me. How did you determine that picture is an ancestor?

I'm not sure, but we've got a full sized painting of one of his sons, Cyril, who looks quite similar, but older. Cyril was killed in France in 1918. We found a lock of his hair in amongst all my dad's memorabilia after he died, along with a number of rather heartbreaking letters.

Edit - looking at it online, there's an obscured word, but it doesn't look like any of his kids, so maybe it was a commercial one.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Renauda said in Family tree discovery:

Did he also do large scale portraits?

Yes, we found a couple, they're at my brother's. One was of my grandfather as a young man - he married the painter's daughter, my grandmother. They're not really the sort of thing you'd want on your wall, but they're well painted.

[taiwan_girl]

that is very cool stuff!!

[89th]

@George-K said in Family tree discovery:

Unclear to me. How did you determine that picture is an ancestor?

Ummm the kid's name is Walter Partington. If that doesn't sound like someone who uses the word BLOODY or adds letters to words like HUMOUR, then I can't provide any better evidence.

[George K]

@89th said in Family tree discovery:

Ummm the kid's name is Walter Partington.

I didn't click the Etsy link. So, Phibes has an ancestor named Partington.

No surprise.

I thought it was BOLLOCKS - apparently not.

[Doctor Phibes]

@89th said in Family tree discovery:

@George-K said in Family tree discovery:

Unclear to me. How did you determine that picture is an ancestor?

Ummm the kid's name is Walter Partington. If that doesn't sound like someone who uses the word BLOODY or adds letters to words like HUMOUR, then I can't provide any better evidence.

No, the artist's name is Walter Partington, he was my great grandfather. There's a word obscured on the back of the painting that might be the kids' name.

[89th]

Now I'm very curious what that word is. P__nct?

[Axtremus]

"Precinct"?

[LuFins Dad]

Very cool! Do you know anything about his parents?

[Doctor Phibes]

@LuFins-Dad said in Family tree discovery:

Very cool! Do you know anything about his parents?

The artists parents?

It looks as though his father was a small farmer or market gardener in Lancashire (the census says he had 100 acres, which isn't that much), and I'm guessing Walter must have moved down to London for his work, as there are no other artists or similar in that side of the family, it just seems to have come out of nowhere. His house in Hounslow is still there, but it's all apartments now.

This stuff is a rabbit-hole.

[Jolly]

Yeah, but I still like the dog.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Jolly said in Family tree discovery:

Yeah, but I still like the dog.

I love that painting. It hung in my parents house for about 40 years, and I managed to get it when we divvied up all the stuff.