The Croscup Family Room

This lighter panel is actually a painting
of Trafalgar Square in London.

One of the things about being in the National Gallery is getting a different perspective on Canada.

The Croscup Family Room is a whole room taken from a home in Nova Scotia and transported to the museum so that visitors can get a look at what a home from the 1850's might have looked like on the other coast -- at least a settler home.

This one was decorated by someone who came and asked for room and board at this house.

In return, they said they would do mural paintings, and that is how this house came to have murals on all of the walls of the family room.

I never tire of returning to this room and trying to imagine what it would have been like to have lived in such a room.

This is the frieze above the fireplace.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are sitting
and their grandchildren are being introduced to them.

I always come across something more I want to know. This time the plaque by the installation said that the doors and windows have a tromp-l'oiel finish*.  I am about to go to google and find out what that means.

Arta

* Trompe-l'œil (French for "deceive the eye", pronounced [tʁɔ̃p lœj]) is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions. Forced perspective is a comparable illusion in architecture.