Old paintings

Did I ever tell you that some of my ancestors down in south-west France were keen on painting? Although I'm not a competent critic in this domain, I have the impression that these old folk were bloody great artists. On the other hand, their range of subjects was somewhat limited: mainly rural landscapes with animals. Sadly, I don't have any trustworthy genealogical data about these ancestors, neither family Bibles nor even parish records. So I don't whether they managed to work professionally in this field and actually earn a decent living as artists. I would imagine that they scraped through. It's a fact, though, that you won't find any of their stuff in the major galleries such as the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris. In those days, alas, they knew little about the international art business. And I would imagine that their marketing agents were clueless.

This splendid website has been set up by the French ministry of culture.