Something on Saturday

Treasure 3

Carrying on with Paintings.
This one I love. I sit and look at it for ages discovering the details. Wondering how the painter got the effect of the children at the back having just been moving around when you weren't looking.
I love the coral colours in the front that draw you in through the intense stare of the older girl and the focus of the little girl on the straw. and then the Teacher with the little one on a bench. Certainly easier than bending down in a corset? I love the boys  getting into mischief on the right and the little boy asleep with his sister keeping an eye on him. and again, all the children moving around, chatting while plaiting in the background.

I am not completely sure, but perhaps the children then were kept out of the way at harvest while being practical to make the straw plaits sent off to be made into straw hats which were very fashionable then.

George Washington Brownlow - A Straw Plaiting School in Essex

click to see more detail

This has a precious story for us.
Our attempts at trying to adopt 2 children from Romania had fallen through. We were grieving. I saw this print in a furniture shop (hung to give furniture a setting more like people's homes). I had to go in and ask. Is it for sale? How much? £50. oh.
(this was 28 years ago and £50 was more than we could imagine paying for something that wasn't practical.)

I can't remember the order of things, but next time we were in town, I took my husband to look at it. off and on, we went to visit it with our son in his pushchair.
When my mother-in-law came to visit, we took her to see 'our painting'! I think it was then we decided that even for £50, we had to buy this. I think for all of us, it was something like a soothing of the soul to have these children when we had 'lost' our Romanian children.

So, we all looked in our purses and found out we had just £50 together. I went in to ask. But the different sales person said it wasn't for sale. SOB! so I went back out where they were all waiting, very distraught.

Mother-in-law takes up the challenge. Marching in there, I don't know what she told them, but she came out with the painting for £50! She was an amazing woman. And she knew how dear to my heart this was after what we had been going through.

So, there you are! A bit more of a story than some of these treasures will have.
Go sit in my chair in the lounge and look at the painting for ages.