SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

As i get older most memories have inevitably become blurred and distorted by the passage of time. However some recollections and images remain as crystal clear and in this case curiously bizarre as if witnessed yesterday.Back in the 70's my dear old Grandmother owned a cheap printed reproduction painting that hung above the hearth in her otherwise ordinary living room. The portrait depicted a small pale girl sitting alone in a threadbare room. The girls eyes were streaming with tears and in one fragile hand was clutched a tiny bedraggled kitten. Even as a young boy i was struck by the anguished morbidity of the scene which to me cast a brooding,morose and somewhat disturbing pall over an otherwise cheerfully mundane lounge.Yet there it hung for years without so much as a comment. My Gran always appeared blissfully unaware and unaffected by the ghoulish scene balefully glaring out from her wall.I was wondering do any of you out there have recollections of strange,bizarre or plain sinister family heirlooms.

I remember people going on about the apparent bad luck of the crying boy painting as far back as the 70's. Here's a snippet i found about it. No doubt there's more on the net..........................................................................The Crying Boy is a mass-produced print of a painting by Spanish painter Bruno Amadio, also known as Giovanni Bragolin. It was widely distributed from the 1950s onwards. There are numerous alternate versions, all portraits of tearful young boys or girls.On September 4, 1985, the British tabloid newspaper The Sun reported that a firefighter from Yorkshire was claiming that undamaged copies of the painting were frequently found amidst the ruins of burned houses. He stated that no firefighter would allow a copy of the painting into his own house. Over the next few months, The Sun and other tabloids ran several articles on house fires suffered by people who had owned the painting.By the end of November, belief in the painting's curse was widespread enough that The Sun was organising mass bonfires of the paintings, sent in by readers.To lift the curse it is said you must give the painting to another or reunite the boy and the girl and hang them together.        

Here's a few variants of the painting. Click the pic for the full size. It's interesting to see that at least four of those images are linked to paronormal, and ghost related websites.As Nick Ross would say. Please don't have nightmares                 

Hi Franco. I've tried Google images searching for the painting, but can't find an exact match to your description. It sounds like a typical Victorian print. They were very keen on melodramatic subjects, such as this.

Is it this?

Or this?

Maybe this?

If you have one of those over the mantlepice you almost deserve to get burned down!

Those are blooming horrible paintings.Why on earth would you want one of those in the house?

my Grandfather had one but it was where the child (he had both boy and girl ones) was facing the wall and there head turned round crying holding a teddy bear. was that one of them?