Artists carry on a regal tradition capturing pride of place, cherished memories

Artists carry on a regal tradition capturing pride of place, cherished memories

Randal and Judith Lemke have a very personal art collection on display in their Falls Church townhouse.

There's a pen-and-watercolor picture of the Falls Church house where they used to live, hanging on the wall with a painting of their West Virginia cabin, a picture of their boat in Solomons and one of their townhouse. All were done by Neil Shawen, a friend and fellow Falls Church resident who has made a post-retirement business out of such artwork.

"Each time, he's been able to capture it nicely," Randal Lemke said.

Their little gallery is in a tradition that stretches back at least to the ancient Romans -- excavations of the ruins of Pompeii found that the walls of some lavish seaside villas were adorned with paintings of those self-same villas. It's a proclamation of pride in a home, as well as connection to it.

"There has been a continuing Anglo-American tradition of house portraits from at least 1678, when Henry Winstanley published one of the first sets of country house engravings," said Maggie Lidz, estate historian at Winterthur in Delaware, a du Pont estate and museum known for its collection of American decorative arts. "In the 1680s, he advertised his services to 'All Noble Men and Gentlemen that please to have their Mansion Houses designed on Copper Plates,' " she said, citing an art history text.

Her upcoming book, "The du Ponts: Houses and Gardens in the Brandywine 1900-1951," is illustrated with varied images of that wealthy family's homes, including the cover image, a 1935 painting by Nicolas de Molas of the grounds and house at Eleutherian Mills, a du Pont home for generations.

In the Victorian era, there was "a fad" for watercolor albums of houses, fed by Queen Victoria, said Gail S. Davidson, curator and head of the drawings, prints and graphic design department at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. Her museum mounted an exhibit last year of such paintings.

Generally, the albums consisted of a watercolor of the exterior of the house, followed by one of its garden, then paintings of each of the rooms, often in realistic detail. Victoria had albums made of all of her palaces, Davidson said. She gave copies to her children as they moved away to marry royalty elsewhere in Europe.

Less-regal families emulated her, often with albums painted by amateur female artists. (Painting watercolors was considered a proper occupation for a Victorian woman with artistic talent.) Such albums "were particularly popular in the 19th century for several reasons, but I think the most important has to do with consumption," Davidson said. "It was a period of increasing wealth; people were very proud of their possessions. They wanted to have the things they owned, wore, the rooms they inhabited documented."

Today, artists who paint house portraits regularly exhibit at local art fairs. Many showcase their portfolios on the Web, in a variety of media, styles and prices.

Shawen, the Falls Church artist, estimated that he has memorialized 300 to 350 homes in the past 10 years. For prices beginning at $130, he sketches a house in pen and ink, then overlays a watercolor wash. The black-and-white image is suitable for note cards, the 9-inch-by-12-inch color one for framing and hanging, often over a fireplace.

His work is usually local, so he'll visit a house, but he relies mostly on photos. "I have stood in the middle of Route 7 and tried to draw townhouses, but it's a very unnerving experience," he said.