Hello Robert, Victoria and Dougie.
We have just returned from the Emerald Island from having spent nine days there, between Dublin, Navan and Longford. In Dublin, we stayed at the Shelbourne Hotel which is the oldest in town, founded in 1824 and is situated just around the corner from the National Gallery of Ireland so as you can imagine, I spent most of my time there, viewing the paintings and exhibitions in situ brought from the Netherlands from the most iconic images of the Dutch Golden Age. These paintings were borrowed from different art galleries and all date from the middle of the seventeenth century, when the Dutch Republic enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and the Delft art scene flourished. The masterpieces I saw, were specifically from Delft, paintings by Johannes Vermeer, Carel Fabritius & Pieter De Hooch. Downstairs, there was an exhibition by Thomas Roberts an extremely gifted Irish landscape painter who lived between 1748 - 1777 and who unfortunatelly died before he was 28 years old of consumption. I enjoyed his paintings, his detailed and controlled topographical works, and his keen understanding of the fundamentals of classical landscape painting in terms of recession, tone and balance. It just goes to show that Classical paintings are timeless and the day will come, when all this tat, that now passes as " art " will be cast aside as the rubbish it really is. Would you believe, that down the road from there, where Nelson's monument was before the IRA blew it up, it has been replaced by a steel mast ! at a cost to the tax payer of 30 million Euros. Its hard to figure out this is supposed to be " Art " I would say, con-artists did this.
In Longford, we stayed at a charming country estate called View Mount which had a really nice period house ( Georgian ) with impressive and beautiful gardens. One of them was a Japanese garden with a pagoda included. Their restaurant had superb gourmet food, served in four different courses and all the rooms have wonderful views to the gardens. In their library, whilst I was browsing one of their books, in one of the pages of an Irish history book I came across a painting by my Great-great-grand aunt, Maria Spilsbury; this is a painting I had never seen before. I will show it to you here.
Jane
Completed Portrait
Jane: Next Steps
Jane: New Portrait
Vanesha: Finished Portrait
Vanessa's Portrait
Ruth's Portrait
Lunch, San Lorenzo
Hotel Christmas Tree
Dinner at the Dorchester
Birthday
Happy Halloween!
Sacre-Coeur
Montmartre by Night
Restaurant Le Consulat
Artists Quarter
Montmartre by Day
Louvre Museum
Pyramid
Cathedral
Notre Dame
Paris
Eiffel Tower
Peter in an Irish Pub
View from our room in Donegal
Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin
Entrance to the City of Ek-Balaam
Tlaloc God of the Rain
Mouth of the Serpent
Angel in Ek-Balaam site
Sculptures in Ek-Balaam
Ek-Balaam
Man on a Ledge
View from our room
Cancun
Hotel Beach
Cancun
Enjoying the sunshine
Ek-Balaam site
Sunset from our room.
Sunset. View from our hotel room.
Posing with a stolen apple.
"Mmm, Cheese!"
"No Mr Blair, I am not Spanish"
"What do you think, M. Sarkozy?"
Farmland
The Shrewsbury Road
Pastels
Farmland
Pastels
Other side of kitchen.
New kitchen
Merida, Mexico
Merida, Mexico
Peter, Maria and Richard Hammond
A Romantic Cruise
Lunch at Merida
Lunch at Cancun
Guest bedroom fireplace
Beams in Office
Master Bedroom fireplace
Patty Spilsbury, my sister
Not exactly a picnic
Towards the Farm
Back of our house
At the back of our home
Snow scenes at home
My son Hector Birchwood meeting Mrs Thatcher.
Hygeia
Work in Progress
Thanks to our camera crew for the photo
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Filming in Ireland: Heir Hunters
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Painting in Progress
Work in Progress
Floodlit Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral, Evening
Early Evening in Lincoln
Painted when I was 13 years old.
Venice
More detail
Our House
Another show for Heir Hunters.
Filming at the Bear
Bear Hotel, Hungerford
Maria, Victoria and Peter
Victoria
Interview
Filming at Denbigh Record Office
Formal night on the 2010 cruise
Black Poodle
The younger Leonardo
Friends from El Salvador in Madrid.
Charlie 2
Sweet Dreams
Charlie
Cat-nap
The Adoration pf the Shepherds
Guido Reni (1575 - 1642)
Lough Rynn Castle Hotel
Leonardo da Vinci
Dog2
Dog
Maria
The Crystal Palace in El Retiro Park
The Royal Palace
The Plaza Mayor
La Cibeles Fountain and the Post Office
The River Manzanares and the Cathedral
Monastery of the Escorial, Spain.
The Royal Palace, Spain.
Birthday Celebration.
Birthday Celebration
Like the wine, I get better with the years.
Maria Spilsbury's Painting
Nudes
Nudes
Nudes
View from our Balcony
Neptune Fountain
Red Roses
View from the back of my House
View from my House
Sra Dina de Spilsbury
My Mother
Port of Isla Mujeres
Our hotel beach
View from Tulum
Tulum
Turtles
Tulum near Cancun, Mexico
Detail of the same Church
La Merced Church, Antigua, Guatemala
La Merced Church, Antigua
Earthquake damage
Church of the Cross
Another Guatemalan Church.
Cathedral, Antigua Guatemala
Parrot and me
Courtyard, Convento Hotel Antigua
Room at Convento Hotel Antigua
Room at Convento Hotel Antigua
Mother and Child
Flowers
About Me
- Maria
- Maria Spilsbury Birchwood started painting at an early age at the studio of the Spanish painter Don Valero Lecha and the muralist Violeta Bonilla, pupil to the great Mexican painter, Diego de Rivera. She received her first commission at the age of 13: a commission to paint a bullfight.When she was in her teens, she entered a competition and learned that she had won first prize. She was presented to the sponsor of the competition,who offered her a scholarship on behalf of the Dante Alligheri Society to study art in Rome. Maria continued her painting studies in Madrid, Spain at the school of San Fernando under the tutelage of the foremost landscape painter Jose Sanchez Carralero. She moved to England where, in 1982, she married forensic genealogist Peter Birchwood. Over the years, Maria has exhibited her work widely in different countries; at the Barbican Gallery in London, in California where she worked as a scenic artist on theatrical backdrops, Bedfordshire, and Wales, where she now lives. A recent commission was to paint the portrait of Liberal Member of Parliament Lembit Opik. The portrait is now hanging in the House of Commons.
Flowers in a Vase
9 comments:
Hello Maria and welcome home,
I was wondering if you had deserted the ship .. I didn't realise that your trip was for nine days, I was thinking it was just a long weekend.
It all sounds very nice and great for you with the gallery there. What a wonderful surprise for you to find that painting from your great, great, grand aunt I look forward to seeing it here. I suppose you are named after her?
Did you have a Guiness in Ireland, it is supposed to taste much, much better?
I have been to the UK so many times, but never to Ireland, I intend to visit next time for sure. A lot of my family tree came from Ireland, and I shall have a Guiness!
Hello Maria,
Did you get time to visit Killarney....?it really is beautiful there,and Cork too,there is much beauty in southern ireland,though i havent been there for 12-15 years,I doubt that the REAL ireland has changed that much.I recall driving from wexford to limerick with frequent hold ups due to farmers herding their flocks of sheep along the main road as casual as could be.It was a great way of life it seemed,there was nothing one should do today ,that couldnt best be done tommorrow kind of attitude.Dublin i didnt like..the attractions were there of course,but to me the city seemed to have an undercurrent of hostility...towards wghat or whom im not certain....my feelings only perhaps.
Hi Maria
Wow what a find. Yes, I'd be very interested in seeing the picture.
You were in your element being so close to the gallery. The only thing missing was Rembrandt but you can't have everything.
If you have any books with Rembrandt self-portraits in them, show them to Peter and ask who he reminds him of. There should be at least one where he says "Leo McKern - Number Two from The Prisoner."
Hi Victoria, Robert & Dougie
Victoria, thank you for the nice welcome home ! and Yes, I drank Guinnes whilst I was there too. Guinnes is my favourite drink. Once I drank two pints from their headquarters in Dublin, they have a special tour for visitors where they explain you the whole process how they make it and the funny thing is, that their building was just across the old pschiatric building where they would lock up the drunks from the streets, so it probably was torture for them to smell this delicious waft of Guinnes coming from the opposite building and not being able to have a drop of the precious black liquid !
Dougie, you would be surprised to know that Ireland has changed a lot and you would not recognize it now. Dublin ranks amongst the best capitals in the world, it comes as number 25th, whilst London ranks at number 38; Paris comes at No.33 in a list of 215 cities, whilst Ireland's ranking this year is in the top 12 pc. So it beats London and Paris for its high quality of life. Singapore is ranked as first in the world for its modern infrastructure. Dublin is a beautiful Capital city. Another thing that has changed now, its the modern super-highways although I am not too fond of the motorways and bypasses they have built, since it has changed the beauty of the land but luckily, due to the recession the highway road works have stopped and I hope they do not build anymore of these motorways in the countryside since they do not have that much traffic anyway.
I have visited all of Ireland on different trips, I loved Connemara, Cork, Limerick, we have even been in Northern Ireland as well. The truth is. that it always is a mystery tour when we go to Ireland. It starts in Dublin and from then on, we go wherever the search takes us. On this trip, the heirs recognized Peter from the television show, which coincidentally, is being re- shown again on the Irish channels so that was a bonus ! I think what I also like very much about Ireland, is its people. They are the most wonderful people I have come across, so friendly and helpful, it is always a great pleasure for me to go there. Holyhead is in North Wales where you live Dougie, it would be perfect for you to spend a weekend in Dublin. Dublin is nearer for us than going to London from Wales. I simply adore Ireland. The Irish also always beat us at the European Song Contest too ! Which will be very soon. Our performance last year was so abysmal that this time... they have enlisted Lloyd Webber to compose a decent song to at least make it at the top. Fingers cross this year will be better for the U.K. Robert, they have a few Rembrandts at the Irish National Gallery as well.
Hello to all,
Maria, your enthusiasm about Ireland really makes me wonder what I have been missing and makes me want to visit even more.
Singapore at no1!! Surely that is a poll about infrastructure only?
Singapore many years ago was a great and interesting place to visit .. we saw Hayley Mills in Raffles Hotel. Dennis went over to talk to her .. being a fellow pom, I said get her autograph please on the coaster. After a small trip over her feet (she was sitting down) he told her that they had a photo display at the hotel with her as a child in whatever movie it was (I can't remember) that was filmed in Raffles. It was when she was a child, maybe John Mills was in it also. She did not know, and was keen to have a look, she was not staying at Raffles, she only came to visit because of her memories of that time and the movie.
These days I prefer anywhere else in the East, Singapore is too sterile, expensive, virtually no charm left from the old days, and the humidity is I think worse than any other eastern country.
Victoria, only on infrastructure Singapore comes first. The Austrian capital Vienna is the city with the highest quality of life, according to the survey, which measures economy, health, education and political and social environment. Helen Russell, of the Economic and Social Research Institute said: " The devil is in the detail with these surveys - while many of us imagine the tourist brochures when we think of London and Paris, the reality is that they are huge and diverse cities with very high levels of poverty in some areas."
Having visited Dublin and Vienna myself, I would have to say that personally, I do agree with this new survey released by financial consultants Mercer. Ireland and Vienna both deserve to be in the top 12 pc. in the world.
Victoria, I loved Hayley Mills as a child so much, that I wanted to learn how to speak English just so that I could be able to speak to her if I ever met her. That was so exciting to have seen her at that hotel ! Hayley Mills had these enormous blue eyes. She played in a film where she was a twin who had been separated at birth and met her identical sister by coincidence at one of these summer camps where only kids go, without their parents.
Maria, yes I remember that movie also .. I think it may have been Parent Trap? It was good back then, I might not think so now.
The picture from Maria Spillsbury is truly wonderful and beautiful, talent surely runs in your family.
Do you know anything about it, who the lady in the picture is of?
As Ireland was partly a work trip, did it all work out and was the search a success?
Maria,
If Southern Ireland has changed,as you say,then its a pity...but I guess progress (if thats the right word)is unstoppable.It brings its benefits of course,but sometimes destroys as much as it creates.
What was that poem? rough transation
what is this life,if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare
no time to stand beneath the boughs
and stare as long as sheep or cows.........
The ireland i knew had such a dreamy quality,a welcome break from the 200 miles an hour modern rat race....it seems ireland too has succumbed....thats rather sad
Hi Victoria & Dougie,
The lady on Maria's painting is the widow of a well known patriot of Ireland. It is the portrait of Mrs. Henry Bratten. And yes, it was a very successful business trip, since five cases out of three were solved. And the best thing of it all, was that one of the heirs we saw, recognised Peter from the television programme. The programme Heir Hunters is being re-shown in Ireland.
No. Dougie, Ireland is not ruined. The progress has stopped at the right time. Dublin is a really exciting place because as well as being a lovely city, its also a port, so its vibrant with visitors. For me, its always a thrilling experience going to Ireland, taking the ferry and finding ourselves in our own car at the other end, already in Dublin without having to drive more miles to get there. It is only a very pleasant two hour crossing on the ferry which you can use to do some shopping in the duty free shops, watch the harbour. have a nice meal, read a book. Its something I would do anytime at a short notice and I don't need to pack much, as I always buy more clothes whilst I am there. The Irish women's clothes are more colourful and stylish than the grey boring stuff you get in the U.K.
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