Which Painter?

[Maiden Stone]

Ooooh.  Holland, eh?    That's interesting.     It certainly doesn't sound very Irish, and that's where Robert's wife is supposed to come from.     But thanks for that.   I'll see if I can find their marriage now.

A cursory look for surname Holland in Irish civil records 1864-1890 shows 2000+ births, 720+ marriages and 1300+ deaths, so by no means uncommon.
As to whether surnames are Irish: Smith and Wright occur in my Irish family tree. One was result of a child born of a marriage between an Irish woman and an English soldier stationed at the barracks in her home town. Not long after the marriage he left army and settled in the town. Their story may have been replicated all over Ireland throughout the 19th century. Tens of thousands of soldiers were stationed there at any one time during that century. Prior to that, in 16th & 17th centuries were the Plantations, the large-scale influx of settlers from Britain, some more successful than others. Another thing is that some surnames in Ireland are anglicizations of Irish names.

[Winterbloom21]

That's very true, Maiden.    I'm from Ireland myself and of a mixed English/Irish background so know about the oddities that are thrown up in terms of names, and the reasons for it.     It was just that I had never come across the name Holland before, in all the years I lived there.   Since then, I've had a look through the records and can see that it is far from uncommon!      So I'm very encouraged by this now.    I was just a bit worried that I was barking up the wrong tree again, but it seems not.

Interestingly, I have distant cousins in my own tree with the surname Wright, who were the result of a marriage of a local Irish girl and a British soldier stationed locally!   In my case, though, he didn't settle in the town.  She went off with him to the Transvaal, had three kids, moved to his next posting in India with him, and then died.   The kids all got shipped back to rellies in Cork.  He subsequently married someone else and settled back in London.     So, not one and the same as your one, then!