My grandmother, Ingrid Skeri is a very peculiar. She was born in 1874 surrounded by magical art. Several of her relatives were magical artists, but she herself has never painted. Instead, she has devoted her life to care for her family's collection of paintings, sculptures and photographs. She lives on a remotes mountain in Norway, alone after my grandfather Erick’s death in 1944 (he was accidently shot down by a german sniper during the muggle world war 2 while flying his broom). But grandmother is never really alone, as she is surrounded by her portraits.




I tried to make an inventory of her collection once, but never finished as more and more paintings appeared. Grandmothers house is old, and semi-sentient with many hidden rooms. Before I gave up, I counted 121 sculptures, 511 portraits, 93 paintings of landscapes and such. I ever counted the photographs.



My father, never got on with any of the portraits. After he graduated from Durmstrang he has only been back to his childhood home for short stays. Every summer though, he drags my grandmother along to some holiday where she insists visiting antique shops to expand her collection. She also enjoy visiting magical at museums to converse with the portraits, who often are friends with the portraits in her home. Grandmother spends hours writing down messages that she reads aloud upon her return home. For these occasions, she has a huge painting of an empty hall that takes up an entire wall where she gathers her friends to forward the messages. Despite the size of this painting, they have to take turns. And every year there is the same bickering among them, where they fight about who gets the first turn in this highly anticipated event.

But now, let’s move on to the tour of her collection!