Sunday 10 February 2013

Another obsessive country house drawing...

I really enjoyed drawing my last fiddly Victorian house so here is another favourite.

This is Tyntesfield, near Bristol. The Gibbs family, owners of the house, made their fortune selling guano from Peru (or bird droppings, for the rest of us). They expanded a small original house in the latest Gothic style and filled it with bespoke furniture and artefacts from their travels in South America.
By 2000, however, the last Gibbs was living in just three rooms of the house and the rest was locked up and left to rot. In 2001, he died and the house and its fabulous collections came on to the market. The National Trust held a massive fundraising appeal. Over £20M was raised to buy the house, save the contents from being sold and open to the public.


I haven't visited Tyntesfield yet, but it is definitely on the to-do list. Find out more about the house here.

3 comments:

Alison said...

Love your painting and love Tyntesfield! How about doing a Jacobean House next?

Elinor Vickers said...

Good idea!

Maria said...

OMG, these are so beautiful!