We can’t be sure when Joyce visited Girona in northern Spain. We know she visited and produced work from the south west corner of France in the mid-1970s. So it’s not a stretch to imagine she may have headed over the border a few miles to Girona. But her visit was certainly a long time before tourists started to be lured there to see one of the filming locations for the smash hit TV show Game of Thrones, which aired from 2011 to 2019.

Joyce’s painting from the city’s Pujada de Sant Domènec, below, is a family favourite with its solitary, enigmatic figure in black pictured making their way down a beautifully uneven staircase below a sweeping arch hewn in the city’s distinctive ancient stone .

Family collection

In fact, and typically for Joyce, the view she chose in one of Girona’s now most well-known locations is not the obvious one. You can see a nod to the alternative view in the bottom right hand corner of the painting – a low balustrade and few steps of another staircase leading off to the side. This staircase, leading directly up to the front door of the Sant Marti convent, would appear to be a more eye-catching sight and perhaps a more obvious subject for a painting.

Modern-day Girona. Joyce’s painting shows the view through the archway to the left; the stairs to the right lead to the green doors of the Sant Marti convent

In fact this main staircase is so eye-catching it was used – along with a number of other locations in Girona – for the filming of Game of Thrones, specifically the start of a sequence in episode eight of season six when key character Arya Stark is chased by a knife-wielding “Waif”. It’s Arya who’s pictured in the below still image lying down, out of focus in the foreground, with the gates to the convent in the middle at the top.

Still from the start of the chase scene in episode six, season eight of Game of Thrones, looking up the steps to the green doors of the Sant Marti convent

But Joyce’s preferred subject for her painting was the more enclosed, darker, less glamorous off shoot to the left of the main staircase. With its multitude of shapes and shadow-casting nooks and crannies, you can see why Joyce turned to it. The worn, jumbled steps add to the atmosphere. The finishing touch was Joyce’s decision to add as a focal point a solitary, black clad figure, perhaps prompting the viewer to imagine they are heading to late Mass at the convent.

If you compare the picture of the modern staircase with Joyce’s painting, the stone steps have been repaired or replaced and straightened since her visit more than 40 years before. The simple low balustrade of the right hand staircase has been replaced with a slightly higher version topped with a decorative stone ball. It’s possible of course that Joyce deployed some artistic licence. There’s certainly some such licence more obviously in evidence elsewhere in the painting: assuming it’s not a modern addition, she chose to leave out the large doorway that’s in the wall to the right under the main arch, helpfully de-cluttering the foreground and adding to the painting’s impact.