The Burrell Collection

We were at Pollok Park again this morning - that's the second time in two days, how keen are we? The kids and I were there yesterday with my brother (pics on my other blog), up at the Pollok House end. The kids love the playpark but it's very popular and that late in the day very crowded, so I told them that we'd go first thing in the morning one day. Today was the first day of my Beloved's holidays, we were up early and it was sunny so it was the perfect opportunity.

The playpark is in the part of the park where the Burrell Collection is, so after about an hour in the playpark we headed inside for a dose of history. When my Beloved and I first moved down here (back here in his case, he's 'local') we used to go the Burrell quite a lot, especially in our historical re-enactment days, but since the kids came along it's been a lot less frequent. They're getting to an age now where they can take a bit of an interest (especially the Boy) so we were in there for longer than I expected but it was nothing like as leisurely as it used to be! My favourite objects, the tapestries, have been moved around a bit since I was last there and there was an interesting leaflet about the Burrell Tapestries Research Project explaining what's going on with them.

Well, it would have been more interesting if Miss Mouse hadn't been running riot while I was trying to read it! I've linked to the Project's blog before but it's worth doing again!


I bought a few postcards - top right, Hercules Initiating the Olympic Games, c. 1465-70 (bit of a foppish 15th century Hercules!), at the bottom The Bible Tapestry, 1505 or 1550. And top left?


A closer look! This is one of the paintings from the 'upstairs' (mezzanine I supose) gallery. It's called La Raie (the Skate) and is by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) and it amused us because this is exactly what our own little tortoiseshell-and-white cat does. We're sitting eating (this is when we're lazy and eating dinner on the settee) and she saunters over, sits down and apparently falls asleep. At some point while we're eating she'll think 'Oh I'll just casually have a s-t-r-e-t-c-h, and, ooh fancy that, there's a bit of steak almost on my claw...' Hmm. Well-observed Monsieur Chardin.

I googled La Raie to check it is a skate as although I was pretty sure it said that on the label by the painting it doesn't say on the postcard. And through Google I found another painting entitled La Raie, also by Chardin. If you have a look you'll see it's another cat (I think), another skate and some more oysters. Further googling of 'Chardin cat' finds The Silver Tureen and Still Life with Cat and Fish and a bit of a theme developing. Poor Monsieur Chardin!

Anyway, why are the postcards on the grass? Well, after we went back outside the kids had a bit of a run around and an ice-cream each, while I sat on the grass, had a coffee (also from the ice-cream van, how sensible of them!) and looked at the postcards and the tapestry leaflet. What could be nicer?