Family Heirloom

My mother and father had two daughters, Nuria born in 1941 and me, Maria Josefa, born in 1943. Our paternal grandmother, yaya, lived with us.

When I was born, my family lived in a beautiful house in one of the best areas of Barcelona. We had a car and a chauffeur, a live in maid and a nanny. We were wealthy and had a great life. My father decided to capture those good times with a portrait of my mother with my sister and I. The painter's name was Ribot.

That painting was hanging at the library of our first house. 5 years later  in a reversal of fortune, my father lost most of our money on an ill fated business with a "friend".  We were forced to give up our life style and moved to an apartment in an area called El Putxet. Even though almost all the furniture and art objects stayed in the house (which was rented out to friends) the painting came to the new apartment with us, it hung in the living room area.

The painting was part of my life when I was growing up. After I got married and moved to the States I often thought about it and rejoiced when we  went back for vacations and it was still there.

Time passed and I am not sure what happened with the painting. I remember one time when we went to Platja D'Aro where my sister and her daughters lived, we talked about the painting and Marv and I wanted to bring it to the States, but it was too heavy, too hard to transport and too expensive, so we sort of gave up on it.

Last September my daughters and I went to Spain, after several years, It was an emotional and great trip. The day I met my sister Nuria, she surprised me by giving me a rolled up package

It was the painting! She had kept it, minus the frame, and just rolled it up and kept it all this years.
I was surprised and thankful and mailed it to our home in California. When we got back we couldn't wait to open the package with the painting. When we saw it, we were sad :(

Being rolled up all this time, the painting was brittle and much of the paint had cracked. It was also badly damaged with humidity and had dust and dirt. It look dull and sad.

After talking things over, Marv and the girls and I decided to try to have it restored. Lizzie took it to San Diego and found an artist that did art restoring. It would take time and money, but we went ahead with it. That's a picture of the painting after the artist patched the spots that had lost paint and covered the scratches

She then cleaned the painting filled in the white spots, and did her magic. It was many hours of painstaking work, but now it was restored, vibrant and beautiful.

Today Lizzie brought it home, and here it is with the frame. It will hang in our living room.

WELCOME HOME

BENVINGUT A CASA NOSTRA