Exhibition Date changed from Dec 1st. Likely to be Sunday 5th now. Gorry Catalogue Text Nov 2010_Web

8/8/2019 Exhibition Date changed from Dec 1st. Likely to be Sunday 5th now. Gorry Catalogue Text Nov 2010_Web

1/32

GORRY GALLERY

requests the pleasure of your company at the private view of

An Exhibition of 17th - 20th

Century Irish Paintings

on Wednesday 1st December 2010

Wine 6 oclock

1st December - 15th December 2010

This exhibition can be viewed prior to the opening by appointment alsoSaturday 27th, Sunday 28th November 2 - 5 p.m.

Monday 29th - Wednesday 1st December 11.30 a.m. - 5.30 p.m.

and at

www.gorrygallery.ie

Kindly note that all paintings in this exhibition are for sale from 6.00 p.m.


2/32

11. JOhn MuLvAnY c. 1839 - 1906

Battle of AughrimOil on canvas 88.6 x 198.1cm

Signed and Dated 1885

2

PROVENANCE: Nathan Brothers, Tailors, 201-204 Colorado Blvd., Denver, Co. (1914); San Francisco, 2010.

EXHIBITED: Paris, 1885; Dublin, 1 July 1885; Hospes Art Store, Omaha, January 1887; Bazaar for St VincentsFoundlings Home, Exposition Building, Chicago; Loesers Art Gallery, Brooklyn, July 1909.

ENGRAVED: Goupil, Paris, 1885, as The Cavalry Fight at Urachree, 12 July 1691.

LITERATURE: Courier-Journal, 28 July 1883; Aughrim A Superb Picture of the Terrible Cavalry Fight at the Pass of Urachreeat the Opening of the Famous Battle of Aughrim on Sunday, July 12, 1691, Painted by John Mulvany ; Freemans Journal, 30 June1885; Irish Times, 1 July 1885; Freemans Journal, 11 July 1885; United Ireland 11 July 1885; The Nation, 8 August 1885;Chicago Current, 22 August 1885, p. 125; Brooklyn Eagle , 23 August 1885; Boston Pilot; undated and unidentifiednewspaper cutting, Alice Garvey Collection; Chicago Citizen 1885; Dublin University Review , August 1885; DublinUniversity Review , September 1885; Omaha Sunday Bee , 9 January 1887; The Nation , 15 January 1887; NutshellBiograms, Irish Monthly, vol 5, 1887, p.110 ; United Ireland, 14 February 1891; Thomas Tuite, Gaelic American, 3 April1909, 10 April 1909; New York Sun, 23 May 1906; Anne Weber-Scobie, The Life and Work of Irish-American Artist JohnMulvany (1839-1906) (Binghamton, NY: 1993); Shane Hegarty, Irish Times, 2 October 2010; Niamh OSullivan, IrishTimes, 2 October, 2010; Conor OClery, www.globalpost.com/dispatch/.../battle-of-aughrim-john-mulvany

Forget not the field where they perishd,The truest, the last of the brave

All gone - and the bright hope we cherishdGone with them, and quenchd in their grave!

Thomas Moore

This Flintlock Pistol, traditionally believed by the family to have been carried by Captain Brian McMahon atthe Battle of Aughrim, 12th July, 1691 (On loan from the County Museum, Dundalk)


3/32

Following a series of disastrous defeats, notably at theBoyne, Lieut.-General St Ruth, commander of the Jacobite forces regrouped 20,000 men on the Hill ofAughrim in Co. Galway. On 12 July 1691, Godert deGinkel, commander of the Williamite forces, camethrough the Pass at Urraghry, intent on finishing off thearmy of King James. But the Jacobites put up a valiantfight and, briefly, it looked as if they might win. Themoment was short-lived, but is perpetuated for futuregenerations in Mulvanys Battle of Aughrim.1

In 1885, Mulvany brought the huge cavalry fight back tolife. Hear the strike and clash of swords and bayonets;the neighing and snorting of horses; the crackling andsparking of flintlock and musket; the blare and whirr oftrumpets and hautboys; the grunts and roars of men;and the weeping and wailing of women and childrenwho paced the periphery of the battle field.

Contemporary descriptions include harrowing accountsof terrain slippy with blood, and the screams and moansof thousands of wounded soldiers, as they begged andprayed to be taken out of their agony. What possessed anartist in the late nineteenth century to paint such a scene?

Following the ravages of the Great Irish Famine, in 1851,John Mulvany emigrated from Moynalty, Co. Meath, asa child stowaway to the US, where he worked on thecanals. Not surprisingly, his early Irish experiences hadshaped his political sensibility. According to The GaelicAmerican (6 March 1909), Mulvany was of animaginative and inquiring mind, his teachers favourite they both loved Ireland and hated the Sassenach.Master Rogers travelled the country searching formonuments and traditions redolent of Irelands past.Indeed, according to Thomas Tuite, Mulvanys erstwhilebiographer, the repeated beating back of the combinedEnglish, Dutch and Danish cavalry at the Pass ofUrachree by the magnificent Irish horsemen under StRuth was a theme upon which [Master Rogers] greweloquent; erudite, passionate and zealous, his teacherheld forth on Owen Roe ONeill, Father Murphy and the

Emmets. (Gaelic American , 6 March 1909) All of this,Mulvany took with him to America.

In America, according to The Nation (15 January 1887)he became an infant phenomenon as a colourist andwas soon earning thousands of dollars a month.Notwithstanding the hyperbole of late nineteenthcentury art criticism, the reviews of his work borderedon the ecstatic. His years at the front during the Civil Warwould suggest that he was physically adventurous.Professor John Mulvany (as he was known) was,

according to the many newspaper reports of the day,charming and witty, erudite and an excellent linguist. Hewas known as more than an occasional ladies man, withan army of admiring and devoted friends. (Omaha Daily

Bee, 30 November 1890)

During the Civil War, he knew Generals Sheridan,Custer, Logan and Meagher, and painted manymonumental works such as Sheridans Ride fromWinchester, McPherson and Revenge and the Battle ofAtlanta. Following the war, he enrolled at the Academyin Munich in 1869, where he was awarded the medal ofhonour. He then went to Antwerp, Paris, Amsterdam andThe Hague. Finally, he visited Ireland to work on hisscheme to produce a pictorial Irish history. Confidentthat he would find patrons in the US, he returned therewith the material for a series, which was to include suchlandmarks in Irish history as The Siege of Athlone and TheBattle of Benburb. While visiting friends, the contents ofhis studio went up in the great Chicago fire in 1871. Leftwith the clothes on his back, he went west. From 1872 to1883, he painted western American subjects. In 1876, hecame to critical attention with The Preliminary Trial of a

Horsethief A Scene from a Western Court, exhibited at theNational Academy of Design.

But his breakthrough at a national level in the UnitedStates came in 1876 with General Custers defeat on theLittle Big Horn by Sioux warriors. In the immediateaftermath of the historic battle, Mulvany travelled toMontana and embarked on the epochal painting, CustersLast Rally (1881) some seventeen years later, it was stillon the move around America, drawing the crowds andmaking Mulvany a fortune. Other Western subject

pictures by Mulvany include Lynch Law, Back to theWigwam, Scouts of the Yellowstone and Perils of the PonyExpress. In addition, Mulvany had an extensive andprestigious portrait practice, including General T.F.Meagher, Brigham Young, Robert Emmet and Sitting Bull.

Following the remarkable success ofCusters Last Rally,Mulvany was at the peak of his artistic powers. Whenthe Irish-American Club in Chicago wished to decoratetheir new rooms with Irish pictures, one of the committeewas deputed to scour Boston, Philadelphia, New York,

Baltimore and Washington, but returned empty-handed.They sought Mulvanys advice. He explained that thewealthy Irish had little time for national art, nationalistscould not afford to buy art, and painters could not live byideals alone. It was at this point that Mulvany began toturn his attention once again to Ireland and the study ofthe momentous battle that finally settled the WilliamiteWars.

WHY AUGHRIM?The myth of Aughrim is largely built on the randomnessof the Jacobite defeat the decapitation of St Ruth as

one stray cannon ball consigns Ireland to another twohundred years of subjugation. As if to emphasize this,the decapitation of the British soldier in Mulvanyspainting signals, in its one-on-one combat, the valour of

3


4/32

4

the Irish by comparison with the contingency of theBritish victory. From near triumph, to resounding defeat,the story of Aughrim was subsequently reclaimed inIrish cultural memory as an enduring symbol ofentitlement, a site for future resurgence.

Mulvanys painting is an audacious revanche. In astriking pre-figuration, he depicts a Williamite officer inthe centre of the picture being beheaded by his Jacobite

opponent, who wrenches the battered royal cavalrystandard from his dying enemy, and holds it victoriously(albeit prematurely) aloft. Mulvany thus chose hismoment carefully the short-lived victory by Jacobiteforces over the Williamite army at Urraghry, before theywere vanquished on the hill of Aughrim. But by showingthe weakest link in the Jacobite position, Mulvanyillustrates the bravery of the Irish, as they took on thesuperior forces of William.

But why did Mulvany select Aughrim as his plumb lineto the past? In the late nineteenth century, radicalnationalism focussed not only on peasant proprietorshipbut on political independence. Such boldness requiredrepresentation on a large scale: galvanising, iconicimages that had the power to incite action. MulvanysAughrim was begun only fifteen years after the 1867insurrection, six years after the formation of the NationalLand League, and the bicentennial of the battle was lessthan ten years hence. This was no incidental exercise innostalgia then, but a purposeful, positioning image,designed to press powerful memories into a

contemporary political use. If out of violence and traumacomes renewed resolve, the Battle of Aughrim may be seenas an exemplification of Irelands glorious past, and a callto arms in the present. Moreover, by creating Aughrim for

the Diaspora, Mulvany was able to reach internationalaudiences.

THE WARIn the conflict between the Protestant William of Orangeand the Catholic James 11, the crown of England,Scotland and Ireland was at stake, as part of the widerEuropean wars of the seventeenth century: James wassupported by Catholic Jacobites in Ireland and France,William was supported by English, Scottish, Dutch,Danish, French Huguenots and Ulster Protestants; theDutch Republic was at war with France, and the Stuartswere allies of the Catholic Louis X1V.

When James wife gave birth to a son in 1688, theprospect of an enduring Catholic Stuart dynastyimpelled Parliament to issue an invitation to William ofOrange to take the throne with his wife, Mary, daughter

of James. The Catholics of Ireland were prepared to fightfor James in the hope of regaining political and religiouslands and freedoms. Although there was no love between them, James looked to Ireland to regain hiskingdoms and landed in Kinsale in 1689. Louis X1V sentLieut.-General St Ruth to Ireland with officers, troopsand supplies. William needed to quell the Jacobiteopposition in Ireland to secure British dominance and theProtestant Settlement whose power was based on landownership.

Aughrim was one of the bloodiest battles ever fought inIreland, with 7,000 slain out of the 40,000 engaged in theconfrontation. Following the defeat, Galway andLimerick fell fast. For these reasons, Aughrim ratherthan the Boyne can be considered the decisive battle ofthe Williamite wars in Ireland. In its subsequent mythicversions, the battle functioned much as the loss of

Meaghers Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg, or Pickettsmen charging to their deaths at Gettysburg celebrateddefeats resounding to the credit to the losers. Indeed, thecharacterisation of Aughrim as the Gettysburg of Ireland


5/32

would have not displeased the Irish-American Mulvany,himself a Civil War artist and an ardent Irish nationalist.Inevitably, it was also likened to Irelands Little Bighorn.

JOhn MuLvAnY (courtesy of Anne Weber)THE PAINTINGMulvany was absorbed by the battle and spentconsiderable time on the battlefield. And although theterrain is clearly indentifiable by its contours, hisdeployment of details is governed by artisticconsiderations.

The morning mist and swirling gunpowder are notmerely descriptive of the battle conditions then, butdevices that function aesthetically and narratively; they

obliterate parts of the field and allow Mulvany thefreedom to be at times meticulous and detailed, and atothers atmospheric and evocative.

The large house, Kirwans Lodge, rises full square, likea sullen barrier to retreat.2 The huge cavalry horses, withflaring nostrils and bulging eyes, force their way throughthe fray, while a barely discernible ghostly squadronemerges from the very centre of the painting. Thedichotomous handling extends the sense of space andconveys the impression of unlimited action, of a battlethat was both terrifying and terminal, but had infiniteideological possibilities.

Although Mulvany engaged in extensive research, hewas not hidebound his inability to gain access to theroyal armouries was a factor but he was decidedlymore interested in the narrative than the detail. Fordramatic effect, no less than legibility, he colour codedelements of the painting. Glenn Thompson notes thatthe Williamite cavalry wear scarlet coats with yellowfacings and white laced tricorn hats ( in reality they worea number of different types and colours), the Jacobites

wear green (naturally) and crimson. Thompson explainsthat no record of any Jacobite regiment wearing greenhas so far come to light, but there is much that is notknown about the uniforms of the period and certainlysources of information on military costume from thatperiod were scarce when Mulvany commenced his workon this painting. The Williamite horses are all black andgreys, the Jacobite, browns and bays. The Williamiteswear tricorns, and the Jacobites wear moustaches. GlennThompson explains that it was highly unlikely that anyuniform relating to the Williamite Wars was on display at

the Tower of London anyway, with the result thatMulvanys research threw up uniforms that are moreeighteenth than seventeenth century 3. This was not justevidence of the unavailability of seventeenth centurymilitary imagery, but also of Mulvanys historicalinterests being predominantly painterly and politicalrather than literal.

Although no slave to detail, in other respects, thepainting is full of it: the pairs of pistols, worn on eitherside of the saddle, carried in embroidered holsters in

regimental colours, the blanket rolls carried behind thesaddle, the bandoliers, cuirasses, sashes, spurs, boots andgauntlets, and, of course, the white plumes of Navarre inthe heavy steel caps. These have different functions inthe painting they expand the drama, they authenticate,and they have symbolic value which all goes to showthat Mulvany knew his stuff, as an artist, an historian,and a polemicist.

When he went to London to do the research into theuniforms and weaponry, Mulvany had difficulty gainingaccess to the Tower, as his republican views and

associates were known. The early 1880s in London werecharacterised by violence, instigated by the dynamitingcampaign funded by Clan-na-Gael in America. InJanuary 1885, there was an explosion at London Bridge.

5


6/32

Mulvany, a member of Clan-na-Gael, fled to Paris withthe painting; he believed that if he had not, he wouldhave spent the rest of his life in an English prison. InParis, the famous Goupil engraved it, and Mulvany thentook the painting back to Dublin.

DUBLIN REACTIONWhen the Fenian and founder of the Irish National LandLeague, Michael Davitt, saw the Battle of Aughrim in July1885, he wrote to Mulvany, declaring:

you deserve the thanks of the entire Irish race;for in it you have not only upheld the artisticreputation of Ireland, but your genius has transferredto canvass [sic] the dauntless bravery of thoseWho died, their land to save,On Aughrims slope.

Davitt went on to commend Mulvany for teaching

subsequent generations the great lesson in a nationsmarch to freedom which your brush now mosteloquently enforces.4

In Dublin, the Freemans Journal (11 July 1885) announcedthat

no one but an artist of genius could possibly haveproduced such a masterly and realistic picture Notonly are the faces of the men great studies of triumph,despair or ferocity, but even the horses have been

treated with a power that Landseer might envy. Thework may be said to be of the school of De Neuville the manipulation is broad, rapid, and consequentlysingularly effective, the drawing is perfect, and thecolour masterly.

Stylistically, the composition of Aughrim is circular,cyclonic and sweeping: full of verve, dynamism andenergy, and the handling is consummately skilled andinventive.

United Ireland (11 July 1885) concurred:

As a composition it is extremely clever and whollynatural; apparently untrammelled by conventionality,yet in this respect suggestive of the rule ofars celareartem. The lights are extremely well managed, and thesweep of country taken in, by means of the shape ofthe painting and adequate treatment, imposing.Action and movement are everywhere, and some ofthe groupings of the combatants are so effective andlife-like that it wants but life-size to make the beholderfancy that he is present amid the carnage and the roar

of battle in the very truth. The tone of the picture isworthy of high praise. In the treatment of theunmanageable British red, Mr Mulvany has showngreat skill, so that it is impossible to detect a single

unharmonious note throughout the whole mass ofpainting. In technique and handling he follows thebroad and realistic style in which de Neuville was soeffective; and, indeed, there is a good deal in the wholecomplexion of the work to remind one strongly of thatartist. As an historical picture, Aughrim is deservingof the attention of every Irishman, and if anopportunity for its exhibition be afforded we wouldadvise everyone who wishes to see the subjectsympathetically as well as poetically treated to availof it immediately.

But not everyone was so well disposed. On approachinga certain print seller not very far from Grafton-Street5

in the hope of showing the painting, Mulvany waschided for turning his talents to the promotion ofdiscontent. The Dublin University Review picked up thestory and reported that the behaviour of the loyalistshopkeepers of Ireland will astonish even those who had

the strongest notion about their snobbery, their want ofpatriotism, their narrow bigotry, and the low nature oftheir general intelligence. According to the DublinUniversity Review, the same print seller has for monthsbeen exhibiting in his windows a large engraving of twohalf-naked cocottes fighting a duel, commentingsardonically that

Art, or what passes for such, can foster worse thingsthan discontent. We suppose there is hardlyanother quarter of the civilised world where such a

man and such a picture would have met with such areception; but, then, scarcely any other quarter of theworld is cursed with the presence of a faction so bitterin their hatred of the land of their births as the loyalminority of Dublin and Ireland. 6

Happily, Mulvany was not reliant on such begrudgery.He had his own plans for the painting, packed it up andreturned with it to Chicago.

CHICAGO

In 1858, Irish immigrants founded the Fenians, anextension of the Irish Republican Brotherhood backhome. Initially the movement spread amongst Irishtroops in the Union Army during the Civil War. Afterthe war, they combined their politics with their militarytraining. Two abortive raids on Canada in 1866 and 1870led to internal factionalism, forcing the disintegration ofthe Brotherhood and the take-over by Clan-na-Gael,which had been founded in New York in 1867. Mulvanywas a member of the Brotherhood and attended theimportant 2nd Congress of the Fenian movement inCincinnati, Ohio, in 1865. And he continued his

association thereafter with Clan-na-Gael.

Clan-na-Gael was a physical force movement, 40,000strong at this time. Chicago was a major stronghold, and

6


7/32

it raised significant funds for revolutionary activity inIreland. Alexander Sullivan, its leading light, had quite areputation in Chicago. Sullivan pledged the support ofClan-na-Gael to certain politicians in return forpreferential treatment. This increased his supportamongst the Irish, to whom he passed on favours; hence bribery, kickbacks and nepotism were commonoccurrences. Sullivan established an unshakeableconnection between Irish nationalism and the shady sideof machine politics. And his gang were known wardhealers, thugs and liquor dealers.

At the Clan-na-Gael convention in Chicago in 1881,Sullivan, Michael Boland and Denis Feeley wereappointed as the Revolutionary Directory, and becameknown as the Triangle. Sullivans power was nowunbounded. They supported active policy, but notdynamiting per se (although Sullivan later took it uponhimself to extend approval). Doubting the resolve of the

more conservative Land League, Sullivan extracted halfthe raised money to get revolutionary activity going (butalso allegedly diverted funds into his own project, tospeculate on the Chicago Board of Trade). In 1885, theyear Mulvany returned to Chicago with his Battle ofAughrim, there was a move to curb Sullivan. Dr PatrickHenry Cronin, Professor of medicine at St Louis Collegeof Physicians and Surgeons, a prominent member of theClan, initially friends with Sullivan, became hisimplacable enemy. Anticipating his assassination, Croninentrusted Thomas Tuite, a friend of Mulvany, with his

evidence to implicate Sullivan. And, sure enough, in1889, Cronins death followed suit.

When Mulvany showed Aughrim in Chicago, the Citizen(1885) pronounced it admirable and magnificent. TheChicago Current (22 August 1885) noted that it was amasterpiece on the one hand and a superb testimonial topatriotic valor on the other. The two main Chicagoansources for the painting are John F. Finerty and Edgar L.Wakeman two heavy hitters of Chicago journalism andliterary life. The fiery Hon. John F. Finerty, editor of the

Citizen, orator extraordinaire and one-term Congressmanfrom Illinois, wrote many of the paeans of praise in thepamphlet, Aughrim A Superb Picture of the TerribleCavalry Fight at the Pass of Urachree at the Opening of the

Famous Battle of Aughrim on Sunday, July 12, 1691.Wakeman founded the influential literary magazine, theChicago Current, in 1883, and was a writer of considerablecontemporary importance. In his preliminary review inthe Louisville Courier-Journal (28 July 1883), before it waseven finished, he declared that the painting will standas the grandest possible representation of the mostdesperate encounter in that awful cavalrystrugglewhich ruined the fortunes of the Stuartdynasty, and set the seal of servitude, but never ofservility, upon the people of Ireland. He went on to saythat No country possesses such an instantaneousexpression of all qualities of sublimity and power.

Although Aughrim was initially rapturously received,there was a suddenfroideur. As a supporter of Cronin,Mulvany was to be taught a lesson, and the sale of thepainting fell through. He was now disillusioned and indebt. But, as Anne Weber, great grand-niece of the artist,

says, Mulvany was skilled enough to incriminate thosehe held responsible.7 The trials that followed Croninsmurder were inconclusive. Everyone knew whocommitted the murder but convictions provedimpossible. Around 1901, Mulvany began work on TheAnarchists, a painting that showed a group of men cuttinga pack of cards to see who would commit murderThereafter, as if life imitated art, Mulvany himself wasfound dead, drowned in the Hudson River.

There is a common assumption that Irish artists of the

late nineteenth century transcended the harsh realities ofpolitical and economic life either by emigrating andassimilating, or staying put and avoiding subjects thatmight mirror or create discontent. The finding of theBattle of Aughrim places visual art at the centre of anemergent cultural and political nationalism, traditionallyperceived as the preserve of poets and playwrights, journalists and politicians. Michael Davitts closingwords to John Mulvany in 1885 were: I envy Chicagothat picture. If I were a wealthy man it should neverleave Ireland.8 Its return in 2010 is thus a matter of

considerable interest, not least in that amongst those whodid go, many were undeservedly forgotten.Prof. Niamh OSullivan

7

1 I am grateful to Anne Weber, Glenn Thompson and Professor Luke Gibbons for discussions and advice on this painting. A short version of thisappeared in the Irish Times, 2 October 2010.2 Quoted from a contemporary undated and unidentified newspaper cutting, Alice Garvey Collection. There is a small sketch in a notebook ofMulvany naming the house as Kirwans Lodge. I am grateful to Mrs Jo OSullivan Scannell and Canon Trevor Sullivan for confirming thisidentification. Originally known as Tristanes Lodge, it was renamed Kirwans, and was the house of wealthy landowning gentry, one of the 12tribes of Galway. Sarah Kirwan married Edward Carson in 1879; as ever, as a bastion of colonialism, Mulvany chose his markers carefully. Nothingremains of the house, but some stables.3 I am very grateful to Glenn Thompson for conversation and correspondence on the military aspects of this painting.4 13 July 1885, Aughrim A Superb Picture of the Terrible Cavalry Fight at the Pass of Urachree at the Opening of the Famous Battle of Aughrim on Sunday,

July 12, 1691, Painted by John Mulvany.5 Thomas Cranfield, 115 Grafton Street, Dublin.6 Dublin University Review, August 1885, also reported verbatim in The Nation, 8 August 1885.7 Anne Weber-Scobie, The Life and Work of Irish-American Artist John Mulvany (1839-1906), Binghamton, NY, 1993, p. 56.8 Aughrim A Superb Picture: This letter was also quoted in the Boston Pilot, July 1885 (I am grateful to Dr Carla King for bringing this to myattention).


8/32

Born in Zanesville, Ohio, Helmick was trained in Parisat the Academy des Beaux Arts, under the academicguidance of Alexandre Cabanel, subsequently working

as a genre and figure painter, an etcher and an illustrator.

He moved to London and studied from a capacious

studio in Holland Park, becoming a member of the

Society of British Artists and the Royal Society of Painters

and Etchers. He exhibited nearly four dozen paintings in

Britain, and during the 1870s and 1880s set up two

studios in the south and west of Ireland. Some of his

finest work dated from the 1880s, and his studies of Irish

farmers, priests, squires, lawyers, teachers, doctors and

country people provide us with detailed insights intorural life at that time.

His studies of schoolmasters and teachers include The

Country Dancing Master, The Schoolmasters moment of

22. hOWARD hELMICK R.B.A. (1845-1907)

Probably The Village Schoolmaster as exhibited Irish Exhibition in London 1888 (lent by J.J.)

Signed and dated lower left, H. Helmick 1881

Oil on canvas, 59 x 48cm.

8


9/32

leisure (both exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874)[i],

and subsequently A Schoolmaster (watercolour) and The

Village Schoolmaster (both exhibited at The Irish

Exhibition in London in 1888).[ii] Other titles are also

suggestive of his interest in the same subject, for example

The Disciplinarian, and Le Maitre decole de village (of

1881), which may possibly be a French title for this one.

The Schoolmasters moment of Leisure shows a similarlydressed man, evidently in an Irish schoolroom, playing

his flute while a small boy sits in the corner wearing a

conical dunces hat as a punishment. That scene suggests

that the child has been detained alone after school as a

punishment, and the teacher sits beside a table, which is

laden with books, a candle and a small switch or whip.

One is invited to sympathise with the small boy amidst

the symbolic narrative. Helmick would have been aware

of the rough atmosphere prevalent in some Irish country

schools, and other painters before him had visited that

uncomfortable subject more overtly, namely WilliamMulready (with Idle Boys of 1815 and The Last In,

1835).[iii]

This comparatively contemplative, peaceful composition

shows the master alone, in the corner of his schoolroom,

concentrating on preparing a quill pen. Accordingly,

beside him on the table, is an inkwell, and a piece of

paper. Low light rakes across the scene from a window

(out of view), to the left, suggesting an early morning

scene, before the childrens arrival. Since the 6th century,

some of the best feathers for making into writing quills,

were the flight feathers of the geese (which would have

been easily available in rural Ireland). For hardening the

tip, the feather was heated or dipped into alum, then

carefully shaped and split with a blade (hence the pen

knife) to hold ink and produce an even line. Each quill

pen lasted about a week before it wore and needed

attention. Such preparation, which is what Helmick

delineates here, was laborious and time-consuming, and

would also have been a skill taught to his pupils. By the

mid nineteenth century, metal dipping nibs were being

mass-produced; the forerunners of the fountain pen.Helmick may be suggesting that this elderly teacher was

old fashioned, or more likely that he could not afford to

buy the newer, readymade pens for himself and his

pupils. The state of rural schools at that time was indeed

neglected, and an Irish contemporary of Helmicks,

James Brenan, addressed that issue by graphically

portraying poverty in the Irish classroom in 1887, with

his detailed oil, Bankrupt. This painting does seem likely

to be Helmicks The Village Schoolmaster, which was

exhibited along with Bankrupt in 1888 at the Irish

Exhibition in London.[iv] Helmicks portrayal of this

benevolent and learned character, is further emphasised

by the inclusion of piles of books, and an alphabet charton the wall on the right, above the end of a long form

where the pupils would have sat.

As in his Schoolmasters Moment of Leisure, the table to

the left is of mahogany, with pad feet, and seems to have

come down in the world to the humble schoolroom,

perhaps donated by benevolent local gentry. Since

teachers often relied on the generosity of parents and

local people to run their schoolrooms, such an item

seems appropriate. In many schools, pupils arrived

carrying their own contributions of turf for the fire which

kept the schoolroom warm in winter. Despite often

enduring conditions of poverty, according to Crofton

Croker, the village schoolmaster forms a peculiar

character; and next to the lord of the manor, the parson

and the priest, he is the most important personage in the

parish.[v] Here he wears the long swallow tail coat and

breeches, practical for riding a horse, which were only

just still fashionable at that time. He sits on a distinctive

Sligo chair, with arms, which features in some of

Helmicks other paintings.[vi] Such a distinctive chair

was typically confined in a relatively small area, aroundSligo and Galway, so it seems probable that the painting

was produced when he worked from his Galway studio,

rather than the one he also used further south, in Kinsale.

Other objects appear and reappear in his paintings,

suggesting that he resorted to props, so the jug on the

floor behind the chair, and the blue book hanging from a

nail on the wall, look the same as those in Warming

Hands by the Fire (1880).[vii] On the table, amongst the

piles of books, is a combined candle and rush light

holder, which would have enabled children to read and

write into the evenings, on the darkest winter days.

Dr Claudia Kinmonth

9

[i] A.Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their works1769-1904, vol. 2 (Kingsmead, 1970), 63. AWatercolour of this title was sold through the Gorry Gallery in 2008, see Gorry Gallery Catalogue (March 2008), p. 49.[ii] A.M. Stewart, Irish Art Loan Exhibitions 1765-1927, Index of Artists, vol.1 (Manton, 1990), 319.[iii] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), figs 240, 241.

[iv] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig. 250. Another painting, entitled An Old master is a possiblematch, it was exhibited in Liverpool between 1876-1887.[v] A. MacManus, The Irish Hedge School and its Books 1695-1831 (Four Courts Press, 2004), 95.[vi] Notably in A Difference of Opinion reproduced in C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig. 215. C.Kinmonth, Irish Country Furniture 1700-1950 (Yale University Press, 1993), 51-2, figs. 60-63.[vii] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), p.ii.


10/32

8. ChARLEs COLLIns died c. 1744

A Still-Life with Pears, Peaches, Apples, Plums, Grapes, Hazelnuts and Flowers on a BankOil on canvas 63.5 x 75.5cmSigned and dated C.Collins. FEC. 1734

Biographical evidence is scarce for Charles Collins,which is disappointing as he is of immense interest asa rare, and highly talented, Irish still-life painter. Indeed,Collins is one of the most significant Irish artists to haveemerged since the publication of Crookshank and Glinsgroundbreaking work, The Painters of Ireland. Althoughmentioned by Strickland as working in Ireland, he hadfallen into obscurity and, by 1981, when his striking Still

Life with a Lobster on a Delft Dish was purchased by theTate Gallery in London, the little that was known of hislife was confused; his dates and place of birth wereroutinely wrongly given. It has now been shown thatCollins cannot be identical with his Chichester namesake,and he has since been reclaimed for the Irish school; he isin fact one of the most accomplished artists to haveworked here in the early and mid-eighteenth century.

Collins is specifically referred to as an Irish Master inthe Dublin Evening Post for 4 May 1786 in connection with

the sale of the collection of the doctor, and propertydeveloper, Gustavus Hume in which a game still-life wasfavourably noted: a dead hare, dead birds etc...allowedby the first judges in point of elegance and performance,

to be inferior to none. Seemingly this formed a pendantto another work by the artist showing live fowl. A furtherstill-life was included in the collection of James DiggesLa Touche that was auctioned in Geminianis rooms inDublin in May 1764, while the Kildares of Carton alsoowned an example of his art.

As is shown in the current display, Collins worked in

both oil and watercolour and seems to have beenexclusively a painter of still-life. Vertue referred to himas a bird painter, although also noting a self-portrait,while Horace Walpole described him as a painter of allsorts of fowl and game. Certainly game predominates inCollinss oeuvre, as is evident in the 1730 still-life in theNational Gallery of Ireland, a work very much in theDutch tradition of seventeenth-century artists such as JanWeenix, Franz Snyders and Jan Fyt. Instead, however, of being stylistically retardataire , here he is working in amanner comparable to his most advanced French

contemporaries such as Alexandre-Franois Desportesand Jean-Baptise Oudry. More narrowly, within Britishart, Collins has been lauded despite the lowly rankingof the genre in which he worked as being among thoseartists whose feeling for paint and colour...heralded

10


11/32

Reynolds.

Collins is perhaps the only Irish artist of the period toconsistently explore the genre of still-life in oil. It isnoteworthy how William Ashford, for example, quicklyabandoned still-life for landscape after painting a few,rather nave, flower pieces early in his career. There was,however, a market for the genre, though not comparablein scale to that for portraiture or landscape, and manystill-lives were exhibited at the Society of Artists inDublin, though often by amateurs. At the same time, still-life flourished in media other than oil, most notably inthe art of Samuel Dixon and his Capel Street apprenticessuch as Daniel OKeeffe, James Reilly and GustavusHamilton, whose Still Life with Cherries, exhibited in thisgallery in December 2008, makes for an interestingcomparison with the still-life of fruit shown here. The oneother eighteenth-century artist in oil who worked in amanner close to Collins in Dublin was the slightly later

Charles Lewis. Indeed, it is noticeable that still-life wasnot much practiced by Irish artists even of a later date:William Scott is of course the great exception, thoughWilliam Orpens occasional essays in the genre, notablyReflections China and Japan are also masterly (DublinCity Gallery, The Hugh Lane).

Collinss Still-Life with Fruit, signed and dated to 1734,is an altogether more attractive subject than some of theartists game-pieces. Here, as if to illustrate the bounty ofnature, pears, peaches, apples, plums, grapes, hazelnuts

and flowers are piled up on a bank. Collins gives full reinto his masterly, illusionistic technique, beautifullyexpressing the succulence of the fruit. His use of colouris vibrant and his forms are powerfully modelled. Thecomposition, though artful, is simple and unaffectedrather more in the tradition of artists like Luis Melndezthan the exuberantly baroque tromp loeil effects of someeighteenth-century Dutch artists; this is a masterly pieceof still-life painting.

The fruit still-life dates from 1734, two years before

Collins embarked on what is perhaps his most famouswork, a series of twelve oil paintings of birds innaturalistic settings. Nine of these are now owned by theNational Trust at Anglsey Abbey, three are in an Irishprivate collection. Also in 1736, Collins, together withPeter Paillou, embarked on a series of watercolours ofBritish birds and mammals for the collector Taylor White.These sheets have long been admired. Perhaps thegreatest authority of English watercolours, Iolo Williams,recounts an amusing anecdote which highlights howmuch Collins watercolours have been treasured byconnoisseurs.

One of my most exciting experiences as acollector...was when, one day in, I suppose, 1931 mywife and I got off a bus in the Brompton Road and saw

the windows of Parsons shop (now alas no longerthere) filled entirely with birds by Collins. It was thenthe worst moment of the slump and the drawingswere marked at what even then were fantastically lowprices....Even at these prices the family finances...would not allow me to buy more than two but Inever got better value or more pleasure for about 30s.In two or three days the whole lot were gone.

Collins completed several hundred sheets for White,

almost all of which are now in the collection of McGillUniversity, Montreal. One of the few of his bird drawingsnot in a public collection, his Silver Pheasant is dated 1737.Here Collins cleverly captures the haughty nature of thebird. Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable notes that thecharacter of the Silver Pheasant (or LophuraNycthemera) has led it to be used as a metaphor for abeautiful young lady of the aristocracy. He quotes: onewould think you a silver pheasant you give yourself suchairs.

The bird is shown parallel to the picture plane in anarrangement similar to that of his Egyptian Vulture (PaulMellon Center for British Art, Yale) but in contrast tosome of the more dynamic and active postures of other birds such as the Common Buzzard (Cecil Higgins ArtGallery, Bedford). The simplicity of line gives thecomposition an almost calligraphic elegance. Collinscarefully distinguishes between the different textures ofthe feathers and the skin of the birds feet with particularemphasis placed on the pheasants alert, beady eyewhich confronts the viewer with an almost knowingglance. Works such as this fully confirm Iolo Williams

judgment of Collins as the finest bird painter of theperiod. His previously unknown fruit still-life must,however, also give him a similar distinction in that genretoo.

11


A Silver Pheasant

Watercolour on paper heightened with white 34.3 x 49 cmSigned and dated Charles Collins Fecit 1737

Exhibited: The Art of A Nation: Three Centuries of IrishPainting, Pyms Gallery, London 2002 Number 2


12/32

7. JAMEs ARthuR OCOnnOR c. 1792-1841

The Avenue, A View in the Parc de Bruxelles

Oil on canvas 35.5 x 45cm

signed and dated: J.A. OConnor 1835

Literature: Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, The Painters of Ireland (London, 1978) p. 212, illustrated.

John Hutchinson, James Arthur OConnor (Dublin, 1985) p. 180.Exhibited: National Gallery of Ireland,James Arthur OConnor, 1985, no. 78

OConnor was an artist in constant need ofinspiration from the physical landscape. Heexpressed this eloquently in relation to the Irishlandscape that he loved so well. I am about [to go] to thewild and beautiful scenery of my native country torefresh my memory, and get some studies to help me infuture exertion of my profession I know I will be benefited by a sight of the grand....scenery that I willmeet with in Ireland and hope to show it on canvas.Among paradoxes that attend OConnors feeling fornature are the fact that he was a city dweller for almosthis entire life and also that he spent most of career as a,somewhat reluctant, emigrant. One of his few cityscapes,

done when far from his native land, is correctly identifiedhere for the first time.

OConnor was, in fact, a surprisingly adventurous, ifoccasionally unlucky, traveller. From May 1826 he spenta year working in Belgium and there painted anddisposed of many pictures however his success wasclouded; for while in Brussels he was swindled of aconsiderable sum of money; this was not the only time

such misfortunes happened on his travels. OConnoralso enjoyed an extended sojourn on the continent fromSeptember 1832 to November 1, 1833, primarily based inParis but also touring Germany. In between these datesthere is the suggestion of a further trip to Brussels in

12


13/32

1830, the year of the Belgian revolution. Just as his tripshome to Ireland furnished him with subject matter forthe exertion of his profession back in London, so too histime on the continent also provided him with fruitfulinspiration.

OConnor seems to have benefited from the taste forBritish landscape painting that a exhibition of

Constables works had engendered on the continent and,according to his obituary, his paintings obtained veryhigh prices in France and Belgium. Mulvany furthernotes that OConnor made valuable studies in France;this directly echoes OConnors own phraseology inrelation to the studies he executed in Ireland and boththe work that OConnor completed on the continent andthat effected back in his studio from sketches done on thespot are shown by the paintings in this selection.

Among OConnors most famous works, and arguablyone of the finest he ever painted, is a View of an Avenue

(cat. no. 7). Reproduced in Crookshank and Glins ThePainters of Ireland and included in the seminal OConnorshow at the National Gallery of Ireland in 1985, it has been lost to public sight ever since. In the NationalGallery catalogue, John Hutchinson suggests that thepicture may represent a scene in Paris, and indeed giventhe length of time the artist spent in the French capitaland his sketches of French parks such as the Bois deBoulogne (NGI) this is wholly plausible. Hutchinson,noting that the location of the painting has not beenidentified, also suggests Brussels as the setting for thisrather haunting and mysterious work. In this latter

suggestion, he was correct, and here, admittedly withsome artistic license OConnor shows the central avenueof the Parc de Bruxelles.

Laid out in the years after 1775 on the ruins of the castleof the Dukes of Brabant, the park is still one of the mostattractive green areas in the centre of Brussels, itspeaceful, verdant calm now giving little idea of the bitterfighting that had taken place here in the Revolution of

1830, a year, in which as has been noted above, OConnormay have been in the city. Instead of choosing to paintthe more frequently depicted, monumental gateway onRue Royale, OConnor shows the internal axis focusingon the sculptures of the Arts and Sciences by Gilles-

Lambert Godecharle, completed in 1784. Indeed theputto holding an artists palette in one of the groups mayhave been what drew OConnors attention to the spotin the first place.

The painting is dated by OConnor to 1835 in which yearhe was in London unless a further visit to the continentis unrecorded which seems unlikely. It is clear that he

completed the work based on sketches done on the spot.We know that such drawings existed as in 1842, just afterthe artists death, several watercolours of clearly relatedsubject matter were exhibited at the Royal HibernianAcademy. Two were entitled The Park at Brussels, whileothers showed the Place du Sablon and the Market atBrussels. The fact that The Avenue was completed back inLondon explains the inexactitudes as to topography andparticular as to the form of the sculptural groups. Equallythough OConnor has deliberately improved on thescene so as to include more prominently both of thepedestals supporting their sculptures. As the

accompanying photograph illustrates, there is no spotwithin the park from which they can simultaneously beseen so clearly.

1835 the year of the View of an Avenue saw the final greatflowering of OConnors talent and from the same yeardates his masterpiece The Poachers (National Gallery ofIreland). The sheer quality and sparkle of the work withits dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, based on thestrong perspective lines converging on a spot at lowerleft make it among the most arresting, and at the sametime appealing, of all of OConnors paintings.

IfThe Avenue was completed in his London studio fromstudies made in Brussels, three others works seemcertain to have been done on the continent (cat. no.4, 5, 6p.14). They are framed, en suite in distinctively French, orBelgium, Empire-style frames which were clearly madeto measure for the pictures. However, they are paintedon prepared boards of London manufacture. Two showtypical Wicklow views while the other, moonlit, scenewith canal barges and an elaborate hoist has a distinctlycontinental feel. This together with the evidence of theframes and the provenance from a French private

collection suggests that they were painted on thecontinent with materials that OConnor had broughtwith him on one of the two, or possibly three, trips hemade. If this is the case, it is interesting that he paints theIrish subject from memory - not difficult given hisintimate knowledge of the scenery of his native land.

The moonlit scene (cat no.4) in particular is a remarkablework in terms of OConnors technique. The saucer-likemoon is painted with a level of gutsy impasto that isdifficult to parallel elsewhere in OConnors oeuvre. Hehas clearly relished the effects to be had from thick,

buttery paint standing proud of the surface. Takentogether these works of continental influence presentanother side of this much-loved artist.

13


14/32


Canal Dock, Moonlight

Oil on Board, 17.8 x 22.9cm.

Signed with initials

Provenance: Private Collection, France

14


River Landscape with Figures on a Path





Woodland Landscape with Woman on a Path





15/32

15

12. J. JOhnstOn InGLIs R.h.A. fl. 1885-1903

The ConservatoryOil on Canvas, 99 x 90.5cm.

Signed, also inscribed on reverse

One of six sons of a successful Scots-born Dublin businessman, Sir Malcolm Inglis D.L., J.P. J. JohnstonInglis was a regular exhibitor at the R.H.A. from 1885until 1903.In 1892 he was appointed an A.R.H.A and later in thesame year, a full member. Judging from the subjects of

his exhibited paintings he seems to have travelledextensively throughout Ireland and abroad particularlyin Scotland and the Lake District.The brushwork and subject matter of our painting

shows distinct parallels with the work of WalterOsborne and in respect of their similar social and artisticDublin background it would seem likely that they wouldhave known each others work well. This is borne out bythe fact that Osborne painted a portrait Sir MalcolmInglis in 1902 when he was Chairman of the the Dublin

Chamber of Commerce (Exhibited R.H.A., 1902, no.73).According to an inscription on the reverse of the canvasthis painting was sold to another Dublin artist, SamuelRowan Watson (1853-1923) in 1905.


16/32

15. MAtthEW JAMEs LAWLEss 1837-1864

Waiting for an AudienceOil on panel 45.7 x 30.2cm

Signed and Dated M.J. Lawless pinxt 1861

Exhibited: Royal Academy, London, 1861, no. 316

16


17/32

Just a handful of works survive by Matthew JamesLawless who was described by Strickland as one ofthe most brilliant and promising young artists to whomIreland has given birth. Indeed, for many years he wasknown only by A Sick Call which has been one of the best-loved paintings in the National Gallerys collection sinceit was acquired as far back as 1925. However, his extantoeuvre, tiny though it is, is a least an improvement onthe situation in 1987 when Christopher Bailey couldlament: is it not...unfortunate that we, at present onlyhave A Sick Call to remember Matthew James Lawlessas a painter?

It is pleasing then to increase our knowledge of the artistwith the publication of this important painting which heexhibited in the Royal Academy in 1861: this now makesa total of six paintings in Lawlesss surviving oeuvre. Atthe same time it is gratifying to be able to unravel thepaintings subject matter and iconography.

Matthew James Lawless was born in Dublin in 1837. Hecame from an eminent and prosperous Catholic familywith strong legal and literary connections whose mostfamous member was Honest Jack Lawless, a leadingmember of the Catholic Association and colleague ofDaniel OConnell. At an early age, Lawless was sent toschool near Bath when his parents moved to London; healso studied at Clongowes Wood. Lawless began hisartistic training under Francis Stephen Cary, continuingunder James Matthews Leigh. Around 1860, it seemsLawless took a study trip to Bruges and Paris where he

came under the influence of continental artists, notably,as we shall see, Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier

Always sickly, Lawlesss health deteriorated from theend of 1860 and he died of consumption just four yearslater. A Sick Call demands to be interpreted in light of hisconsumption condition. It shows a solemn priest beingrowed across a river with his acolytes, summoned toadminister the last rites by the lamenting women to hisleft. One of Lawlesss early biographers noted that themodel for the priest was a certain Mr Richardson and ithas been plausibly suggested by Bailey that this refers to

Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson (1828-1896) a physician,who having trained in Glasgow, moved to London inabout 1853. In 1856 he was appointed to the RoyalInfirmary for Diseases of the Chest. Bailey writes: It istempting to imagine that he attended Lawless in thisprofessional capacity. If this was the case, andconsidering Lawlesss profound piety, it seems fittingthat Richardson should be portrayed in this redemptiverole. Certainly the mood of quiet foreboding in A SickCall is made enormously poignant when one considersLawlesss health at this time. After completing it, Lawless

was unable to work. He wrote to Mrs Coltart, whosehusband had commissioned the painting, if I can onlyget to the easel again I shall be quite satisfied and happy.He died a year later, aged just twenty-seven, on 6 August1864.

Related to A Sick Call is another recent discovery AnAngling Party , acquired by the National Gallery ofIreland in 2008 while other works by Lawless to havealso emerged from the shadows include A Sailor WaitingEmbarkation of 1859 (private collection) (below) and TheReading Lesson of 1857 which was exhibited in this galleryin December 2008.

The influence of Meissonier has often been perceived inLawlesss work and now that we are in a better positionto reconstruct his oeuvre it can be demonstrated moreclearly. It is arguable that while Lawless was certainlyinfluenced by the older French artist, he was no mere

follower and in his work of 1861 The Dinner Party (above)(private collection) and Waiting for an Audience (cat. no.15) he was working along precisely similar lines to

17


18/32

Meissoniers contemporary production. Signed anddated 1861, and exhibited in that years Royal Academyexhibition, The Dinner Party shows a courting couple attable talking flirtatiously over a glass of wine. Thecostume and interior are of the English Civil War period;of particular note is the finely painted still-life of objectsscattered over the tiled floor.

Writing before the rediscovery of these two paintings,Bailey suggested from their titles that they were smallconversation pieces set in the eighteenth century, a genremuch associated with Meissonier. In fact both picturesdepict subjects from the previous century and so aremore akin to Lawlesss earlier Royal Academy exhibitsof cavalier subjects. Baileys general point though aboutthe influence of Meissonier is still valid and the Frenchartist had also painted seventeenth-century subjects.Indeed his Game of Piquet (National Museum Wales)(below) also of 1861 shares many compositional

similarities such as the diagonal placing of a stool.Lawless had met Meissonier in Paris and won his favour.As he recorded I begged from his, as a relic, one of hisold brushes. One further work by Lawless again done in1861 is a fine and spirited drawing of related subjectmatter: The Cavaliers Escape. Engraved by Joseph Swain(1820-1909) and published in the periodical Once a Week,Lawless here illustrates a poem of the same title by

Walter Thornbury (1828-76). The drawing was alsorecently acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland.

Again taking inspiration from a literary source and alsoexhibited at the Royal Academy in 1861, Waiting for anAudience is a powerful image showing Lawlesss breathtaking technical ability. It illustrates a popularballad, The Cavaliers Complaint, which bemoans the factthat the restored court of Charles II had been filled withpleasure seeking young favourites at the expense of thosewho had fought and suffered for his father in the CivilWar:

Come Jack lets drink a pot of ale

And I shall tell thee such a tale

Will make thine ears to ring;

My coin is spent, my time is lost

And I this only fruit can boast

That once I saw my King.

I went to Court in hope to find

Some of my friends in place;

And walking there, I had a sight

Of all the crew, but by this light,

I hardly knew one face.

(W. Chappell, Popular Music of Olden Times, London 1859,358)

Affixed to the reverse of the picture is the second of theverses quoted above which has enabled the subjectmatter of the painting to be identified.

A specific grievance of the cavaliers was the fact that in1661 thirty seats on the Privy Council went to men whohad fought against Charles I and that veterans, like thecavalier in Lawlesss painting, were sidelined. A

manuscript copy of the poem is dated to 1661 (KingsPamphlets , No. 19, fol. 1661), and given his love ofantiquarian lore it may not be a coincidence that it wasexactly two hundred years later that Lawless exhibitedhis work at the Royal Academy.

Waiting for an Audience epitomizes Stricklandsdescription of the artists meticulous style, painted withgreat care and minute finish, full of character andremarkable for [its] extraordinary correctness ofcostume. He brings great pathos to this scene ofmemories of past glories and manly despair at rejection.

It is pleasing to add this fine example to the newly foundworks by Lawless other than A Sick Call. A suggestivelink between the National Gallery picture and Waiting foran Audience is the fact that the cavalier is likely to betaken from the same model, Joe Wall, who is shown asthe oarsman in A Sick Call; it was recorded by White in1898 that Wall sat for many of [Lawlesss] cavaliersubjects.

18


19/32

19

14. JOsEph MALAChY KAvAnAGh R.h.A. 1856-1918

A Suburban Stream, Dublin

Oil on Board 33 x 40.5cm

Signed, also signed, inscribed and dated July 1907 Verso

Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy 1909 Number 64

29. JOhn FAuLKnER R.h.A. c. 1830-1880

Fishermen by a Lake (Possibly Lough Dan, County Wicklow)

Oil on Canvas 59 x 90cmSigned and dated 1862


20/32

Nathaniel Hone was born in Dublin and by 1748 hehad moved to London where he spent the most partof his career. Although he visited Ireland regularly his

greatest contribution to Irish art was as the founder ofthe Hone dynasty of artists which has lasted to this day.Little is known for definite of his artistic training butHone must have been apprenticed to an enamellist whowould have taught him the difficult technique ofpainting portraits on enamel. From c.1740 until the 1760sHone worked as a miniaturist on enamel and inwatercolours on ivory. Hones reputation is as an oilpainter and founder member of the Royal Academy(1768) where he exhibited up to the year of his death.Hone was a difficult man and he was irritated by Sir

Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), the president of the R.A.,whom he satirized in his painting The Conjuror (NGI).Hone was greatly influenced by Dutch and Italian oldmaster painting. He experimented with styles of paintingand approaches to portraiture in self-portraits andportraits of his large family. Hone taught his sons Horaceand John Camillus to paint and they both becameprominent miniaturists.

Hone painted a number of portraits of his son JohnCamillus Hone including A Boy Deliberating on hisDrawing (c.1766) (Ulster Museum), A Piping Boy (1769)

(National Gallery of Ireland) and The Spartan Boy (c.1775).A version ofThe Spartan Boy was exhibited at the GorryGallery in March 2007. In this group of pictures, paintedby Hone during the late 1760s and 1770s, the sitters are

set against an uncluttered background which focuses theeye on the sitter. Hone did this in his earlier portraits inminiature. In the oil portraits the children have largeeyes, slightly glazed expressions, fresh complexions andred lips. The eyes are strongly painted with highlightsand the attention to minute details derives from Honesbackground as an enamellist. Hone captures the innocentcharm of his young son in his white collar and doublebreasted coat. The budding artist holds a neatly tied foliounder his right arm. One of Nathaniel Hones greatestcontributions to art in the eighteenth century was hisinvention of this new type of picture during the 1760swhich was a combination of the `fancy picture with theportrait. (1.) This is exemplified in his numerous portraitsof his children and grandchildren such as his Portrait of aBoy Sketching (National Gallery of Ireland) and David theShepherd Boy (exhibited R.A. 1771) which are portraits ofhis son Horace. These `fancy pictures of Hones childrenand grandchildren were re-workings of the old master

classical tradition of depicting pastoral imagery andallegorical figures from antiquity. The fact that they arealso portraits, full of character and conveying theindividuality of the sitters, gives great freshness to thework. Hone also painted similar portraits of hisdaughters and grand-daughters. His elder daughterLydia Hone (1760-1775) was the subject of a portrait inwhich she holds a white rabbit which she saved from afox (engraved 1771). Hone did portraits of his grand-daughter Eleanor or Mary Metcalfe (b.1767/8) inMiss Metcalfe with a Pomeranian Dog (engraved 1772) and

Portrait of a Girl with a Pomeranian Dog (1776) (alsoexhibited at The Gorry Gallery in 2003). Hones directapproach to painting this group of portraits of childrenanticipates the work of the next generation of portraitists.

John Camillus Hone became an accomplishedminiaturist (an example of his work is in the NGI). Heexhibited his work at the Royal Academy, London andthe Free Society of Arts. In about 1780 he went to Indiawhere he lived for about ten years. He taught drawingin Calcutta in 1785 before returning to settle in Dublin.He was appointed to the post of engraver of dies at the

Stamp Office. In the Hone family tradition he married hiscousin Abigail Hone, the daughter of Joseph Hone ofYork Street (his fathers brother) and widow of ReverendJohn Conolly of York Street. John Camillus Hone died athis house 14 Summerhill, Dublin in 1836.

Dr Paul Caffrey

1. Martin Postle, Angels and Urchins The Fancy Picture in 18th CenturyBritish Art, London 1998, p. 64.

20

9. nAthAnIEL hOnE thE ELDER R.A. 1718 - 1784

Portrait of John Camillus Hone holding a red folio(1759-1836)

Oil on canvas on panel 51 x 43.5cm

Painted c. 1771


21/32

2. hORACE hOnE A.R.A. (1754-1825)

Portrait of a Lady,

Signed: HH and Dated: 1777

Watercolour and gouache on ivory. 4.7 x 3.7

Set in a contemporary 1770s gold locket

Horace Hone was the second son of Nathaniel HoneRA. Although he was taught to paint by his fatherhe also attended the Royal Academy Schools in Londonin 1770. He exhibited at the RA from 1772-1822 and waselected ARA in 1779. Horace Hone settled in DorsetStreet, Dublin in 1782 and worked almost exclusively inIreland until 1804. Hone had been brought to Ireland byLady Temple when her husband was viceroy. LadyTemple was Baroness Nugent of Carlanstown in her own

right in the peerage of Ireland and through her socialconnections in Ireland and with the backing of the vice-regal court she ensured that Hone received amplepatronage. Hone was so successful that he wasappointed Miniature Painter to the Prince of Wales in1795. He had an extensive practice which was badlyaffected by the Act of Union when many of hisfashionable patrons moved to London. He spent 1804 inBath. For some time afterwards he lived in London, inthe house of his patron, Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliamof Merrion (founder of the Fitzwilliam Museum,Cambridge), where he re-established himself as aminiaturist. Hone had long suffered from mental illnessand his decline is recorded in The Diary of JosephFarington. He died in London and is buried in thegrounds of St Georges Chapel, Bayswater Road.

This beautifully painted miniature portrait of anunknown lady is typical of Hones early, very neat, style.The portrait is built up in layers of grey watercolourwhich are made up of tiny parallel lines. Honescharacteristic grey shading may be seen in the painting ofthe face. The highlights of her dress, the lace and hair arepainted in gouache. This lady would have been amember of fashionable society in London in the 1770swith her high hairstyle and beautiful clothing. She isrespectably presented wearing a fichu or fine shawlcovering her dcolletage.

3. nAthAnIEL hOnE thE ELDER, R.A. (1718-84)

Portrait of a Gentleman

Signed: NH (monogram) and Dated: 1761

Medium: watercolour on ivory. 3.3 x 2.8

Framed in a gold locket case.

Hones watercolour on ivory technique, which he

developed and perfected during the 1760s, isexemplified in this miniature portrait. The portrait isrelatively small and despite the technical difficulties ofpainting in watercolours on ivory this portrait is crisplyexecuted. Hone uses minute dotted stipple in paintingthe grey shaded areas of the face.

21

1. EDWARD LuttERELL (ACtIvE 1673-1724)

Portrait of a Gentleman,

Pastel on a grounded copper plate 24 x 20

Signed: Lutterell fe

Dated: 1692

According to Strickland (1913, vol. II, p. 29) Lutterellwas born in Dublin. He worked as a mezzotintengraver in London. Lutterell adopted the use of copperplates and developed the technique of painting pastelportraits on small oval pieces of copper. This portrait is inexcellent condition and shows Lutterells skillfulhandling of pastel in the painting of the sitters wig andthe lace at his neck. A slightly later portrait, painted in

1699, is in the collection of the National Gallery ofIreland.

Dr Paul Caffrey


22/32

22

28. EDWIn hAYEs R.h.A., R.I (1820-1904)

Dordrecht on the Maas.

Oil on Canvas, 30.5 x 51cm.

Signed, also signed, inscribed and dated 1881 on reverse

Exhibited: R.H.A. 1882. No. 144

25. JAMEs FRAnCIs DAnBY 1816-1875

Dysart, East Coast, Scotland

Oil on Canvas, 76 x 122cm.

Signed and dated 1865

Exhibited: Royal Society of British Artists 1865. No. 596

Dysart is located on the south-east coast of Fife in Scotland.

The six storey tower visible in our picture is St Serfs Tower, all that remains of St Serfs church which was abandonedin 1802 and largely cleared to make way for the building of a new road in 1807. The tower is considered to be one of

Scotlands finest examples of a battlemented church tower. The Dutch influenced buildings at the foot of the towerare collectively known as Pan Ha and have been restored in recent times by the National Trust for Scotland to a statenot dissimilar to their depiction in our painting.

Beyond Pan Ha lies the harbour and hidden by the trees, Dysart House, then a home of The Earl of Rosslyn.


23/32

Born in Hampstead, this talented English genrepainter specialised in landscape and sportingsubjects, having studied at the Manchester School ofArt.[i] He was also an accomplished painter of wildlifeand farm animals. He exhibited at a number of Britishgalleries, most often at the Old Watercolour Society from1866, where he was elected Associate and Member in1867 and 1881.[ii] His titles reveal that he worked inEngland and Scotland, the Isle of Man, New South Walesand more recent research has discovered some highlydetailed paintings from the west of Ireland.

These two oils of Irish cabin interiors, together with athird detailing the processes of wool production (IrishCabin, Spinning) reveal the artists fascination with theminutiae of work in the Irish farmhouse.[iii] Hispaintings explain accurately what many foreigners hadwritten about in their travel journals, yet seemed toofamiliar for native Irish painters to bother with.

In Ireland, the byre dwelling described the widespreadcustom of living beneath the same roof, in the same roomas the cattle, and was long established. John Dunton,

travelling through Connemara in the c17th, was initiallyperturbed when at night, he settled to sleep upon thefloor, the cows and sheep were ushered in to sleep nextto him, for fear of wolves. But soon he remarked upon

the sweetness of their breath and the pleasing noyse theymade in ruminating or chewing the cudd [which] wouldlull a body to sleep as soon as the noys of a murmuring brook and the fragrancy of a bed of roses. The poetWilliam Moffat later described an Irishmans house in the1720s:A House well built and with much strength,Almost two hundred feet in lengthIn one of thends he kept his cows,At thother end he kept his spouseBy the 1770s, Arthur Young wrote about the family

lying on straw, equally partook of by cows, calves andpigs, though the luxury of styes is coming to Ireland ,

23

26. BAsIL BRADLEY R.W.s. (1842-1904)

Interior of a Cabin, Connemara, Ireland. Signed and dated 1880 l.l., inscribed verso in the same hand,with title, artists signature and date.

Oil on canvas, 37 x 57cm.

Interior of a Kerry cottage c. 1840s


24/32

which excludes the poor pigs from the warmth of the bodies of their master and mistress. By 1880, whenBradley was painting in Connemara, poor families livingon that coast were suffering from the great calamity ofthe decline in catches of fish and shellfish. Manyhouseholds combined fishing with farming, so theircattle were crucially important, and brought indoors forsecurity as well as mutual warmth.

Landlords who considered such arrangements primitivediscouraged their tenants from bringing cows indoors,and in mid c19th Sligo a journalist wrote how it was acommon thing to see three or four cows tied up insidethe farmers dwelling, whilst the pig had the run of thehouse at all times, and was a recognised member of thefamily. The Marquess [of Sligo] will not allow thispractise to be carried on.[iv] By this time it wasconsidered sufficiently remarkable for the newspapers topublish illustrations of such arrangements (see Interiorof a Kerry Cottage, c.1840s illustration). Page 23.

Although there is one surviving watercolour showing asmall cow tethered indoors, this is the first proper oilpainting of the subject to come to light.[v] The fact thatBradley is painting a scene in an inhabited cabin, ratherthan an outhouse, is reinforced by his inclusion of suchdetails as the form and table, and the striped cup andsaucer, upturned plate, and jug placed upon it. On thewall hangs a griddle, that was used for cooking over theopen hearth (which one would expect to have been at theother end of this room). The young woman sits to milk

her red and white cow (complete with impressive horns),and her mother sits watchfully, smoking her pipe. Farfrom being considered primitive, the family would havebeen considered comparatively well off, especially by thevisitor, who stands admiringly on the threshold, as apotential suitor. A cow was traditionally part of a strong

farmers marriage dowry for his daughter, along with asum of money. Behind the countryman and beautifullyframed in the doorway, we are provided a vignette of thecoast of Connemara, with its rocky sea inlets. Thisglimpse of the outdoors from inside the farm kitchen isreminiscent of paintings of the same decade by artistssuch a George W. Brownlow, James Brenan and AloysiusOKelly, who also used such a device to augment thenarrative of their paintings.[vi]

The young woman looks up as she milks. As in the c17thDutch genre paintings, which were the inspiration for thec19th Irish scenes such as this, the actions of the peopleare mirrored and given further meaning by the way theartist juxtaposes the animals. So here the older womanobserves the activities of her daughter, just as the cowwatches over her calf.

In some byre dwellings there was a trench separating theanimals at one end from the family quarters at the other.

Here the delineation is made by the bed of purpleheather that the cattle rest on. Details such as the unlinedthatch of the roof, the roughly rendered walls, and theshawl and other clothes hanging from a beam abovethem, were all characteristic of such cabins. Both womenwear homespun shawls and red petticoats which weredyed with madder, and were also typical clothing of thewest. In another of Bradleys Connemara interiors, hedescribes minutely the stages of carding, spinning andwinding the wool into large balls ready for weaving.[vii]This was an important home industry usually done by

woman, while the men generally operated the looms thatwere also a feature of some Irish farmhouses.

Dr Claudia Kinmonth

24

[i] C. Wood, Victorian Painters, Dictionary of British Art, vol. IV(Antique Collectors Club, 1995), 65.[ii] H.L. Mallalieu, The Dictionary of British Watercolour Artists up to 1920, vol.2 (Antique Collectors Club, 1986), 49.[iii] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig. 84.

[iv] Henry Coulter (1862) quoted in C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), 46-7.[v] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig.47 shows a detailed watercolour of a county Mayobyre dwelling by Frances Livesay, dated 1875.[vi] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), figs.62, 115, 165.[vii] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig. 84.


25/32

The pair to the byre dwelling image reveals the artistscomplete understanding of the technique of makinghay or straw rope. Commonly known as sgn, it wasthe type of homemade rope that was important for

dozens of uses such as tying down thatched rooves andhaystacks against the westerly Atlantic winds, for binding the farmers legs to protect against mud, forweaving into the seats of chairs,[i] for tethering animalsor even, when made from shredded bog timber, foranchoring boats. The painting shows how a heap of hayor straw is being gathered together and skilfully fed intoa continuous taut twist of rope. The young girl is keepingthe tension even on the rope while twisting it with a hook(known in some parts of Ireland as thraw hook), and shewalks backwards as the rope lengthens. Viewers of thisimage in the c19th might have speculated about the old

man being either a suitor, or her father. The ritual oftwisting rope was often linked to courtship, and a wellknown play The Twisting of the Rope relates how awoman who disliked her suitor, waited until he walkedbackwards out of the door, and then she dropped therope and slammed the door to get rid of him.[ii] Once therope is made, then it is rolled back up into a ball (whilekeeping it taut, because it is a single twist), and put asideready for use. Bradley understood this process and musthave observed it well, because he places such a ballbeside the mans chair to illustrate the finished product.

In both this pair of paintings, the young women weartheir red petticoats, without shoes, and have their headsuncovered as befitted unmarried women. This one

shows the girl wearing a ribbon in her hair and a crios, abelt that she might have woven herself, and which hangsfrom her waist. These colourful narrow belts weretypically made and worn on the Aran Islands off the

Galway coast. She is stylish in her nicely cut wool jacket,with its fitted waist and black lines delineating the hems.The older women sit by the floor level hearth in thebackground, observing the proceedings; attitudes whichare mirrored by the collie dog watching her puppy in theforeground. The woman who sits with her back to thewindow is wearing a brown cloak that probably covers abasket which is attached to her back. Creels (such as theone seen inside the doorway) were used for carryingthings, attached around the womens heads or shoulderswith straw ropes or sgn. In this way women wouldhave carted seaweed, fish, potatoes or turf from the bog,

and this is further suggested by the fact that she is theonly woman wearing shoes.

The cabin interior is sparsely furnished, with a wall behind the man, which in many houses divided thefireside bed from the rest of the room. The table, whichbears the artists signature and date, is old and worn, andthere are jugs, part of a loaf of bread, and a milk pail onit. In the absence of a wardrobe, clothes chest or press,people often hung their clothes up on a length of rope(again of straw) as can be seen here close to the fire,where they could be kept dry and clean.

Dr Claudia Kinmonth

25

27. BAsIL BRADLEY R.W.s. (1842-1904)

Soogaun (or Straw and Hay rope) making, Connemara, Ireland.

Signed and dated 1880, inscribed verso on canvas with title, artists signature and date

Oil on Canvas, 37 x 57cms.

[i] C. Kinmonth, Irish Country Furniture 1700-1950 (Yale University Press, 1993), 52-9, figs 66-7, fig.121.[ii] Casadh an tSgin (The Twisting of the Rope) became a one act play by Douglas Hyde in 1901.


26/32

Born in Leeds, this skilled watercolourist and genre painter visited Ireland repeatedly from the 1840s onwards,focusing on the peasantry in the Claddagh and around Connemara. Here he shows children gathering water at awell, and characteristically he uses body colour, with some scratching out on the girls hair in the foreground. Relatedtitles exhibited by Topham include Gossips at a Well (London, Guildhall Art Gallery), The Holy Well (BlackburnMuseum & Art Gallery) and At the Holy Well (Glasgow Art Gallery)[i]. A father of twelve, he often favoured scenesof women and children. His work was often engraved for the Illustrated London News, and he was a member of TheArtists Society in Clipstone Street, devoted to The systematic study of veritable rustic figures from the life (ratherthan artists models dressed up). He also painted in Wales, Scotland and Spain, where he died in 1877.

[i] C. Wright, with C. Gordon & M. Peskett Smith, British & Irish Paintings in Public Collections (Yale University Press, 2006), p.772.

Dr Claudia Kinmonth

26

17. FRAnCIs WILLIAM tOphAM R.W.s. (1808-1877)

Gossips at the Holy Well

Watercolour on paper, 30.5 x 45.5 cm.Signed and dated lower left, F.W. Topham 1874

This was probably painted in Mc Cloys home, 117 Fernlea Road, Balham, London, and the young girl is most likelyone of his daughters. The same interior is depicted in a painting in the Ulster Museum and the Lisburn Museum

19. sAMuEL McCLOY. (1831-1904)

Grand Papas Pet

Watercolour on paper, 24.5 x 33.5 cm.Signed with monogram


27/32

20. sIR FREDERICK WILLIAM BuRtOn R.h.A. (1816-1900)

Elizabeth Emily Vandeleur (1807-60) (ne FitzGerald) and her son Crofton Thomas Burton Vandeleur(1842-81),

Signed with the initials: FWB

Dated: 1851

Watercolour on card 66.5 x 46.5cm

Provenance: by descent in the family of the sitters.

Burton was born into a distinguished family who livedat Corofin House, County Clare. At an early age hecame to Dublin to study at the Dublin Societys schoolsof drawing where he was taught by Robert Lucius Westand Henry Brocas senior. For the first part of his career heworked as a miniaturist in watercolours on ivory. He hadbeen taught the technique by Samuel Lover and Burtonsstyle of miniature painting was greatly influenced byhim. Burtons early training in watercolour paintinginfluenced his entire artistic life so much so that heworked entirely in this medium. Burton had a precocioustalent and he first exhibited at the RHA when he wasonly 16. Burton was a friend of Thomas Davis, the leaderof the Young Ireland movement. During the 1840s it washis aim to create a new cultural identity for Ireland andhe hoped that Burton would create a new visual identityfor this vision. Burton travelled extensively in Germanyand eventually gave up painting when he became thedirector of the National Gallery, London, in 1874.

There was a family connection between the Burtons and

the Vandeleurs of Kilrush, County Clare. Burtondelighted in painting large watercolour portraits whichgave plenty of scope for capturing the details of dressand costume. In this portrait the shawl and details of theboys costume are beautifully handled.

Elizabeth Emily Vandeleur was born the daughter ofthe Right Hon. Maurice FitzGerald, 18th Knight ofKerry, MP for County Kerry (1794-1831) and his wifeMaria, daughter of the Right Hon. David Digges LaTouche of Marlay, County Dublin. In 1835 she marriedCrofton Thomas Croasdaile Vandeleur (d.1876) captain

of the 34th Regiment, of Wardenstown, CountyWestmeath. Their son, Crofton Thomas Burton

Vandeleur was commissioned in the City of DublinArtillery and the 12th Lancers. He married Hon.Maletta Yelverton, the daughter of Viscount Avonmoreand Cecilia OKeefe. They lived at Moyville, County

Galway and at Wardenstown, County Westmeath. Hewas later High Sherriff of County Westmeath.

27

21. Crofton Thomas Burton Vandeleur (1842-81)

Oval Watercolour on ivory 7.5 x 6.3cm

Inscribed on the backing paper: Crofton T Vandeleur/afterwards[indistinct]/of the armyof Wardenstown Westmeath and

Moyville Co. Galway

Framed by Cranfield, 115 Grafton Street, Dublin.

This unfinished miniature by Burton would have been painted c.1848. It wastraditionally thought that by the 1840s he had abandoned miniature painting

altogether for the much larger watercolour portrait. This portrait shows Burtonsdebt to Samuel Lover in the loose handling of the watercolour which he floats inheavily laden brushstrokes on the ivory surface.

Dr Paul Caffrey


28/32

28

Provenance:Col. Edward James Saunderson PC,JP,DL,MP (1837-1906)By descent to S. Burdett - Coutts esq., Dorset

Born at Castle Saunderson between Butlersbridge and Belturbet, Co. Cavan, the son of Col. Alexander Saunderson,MP for Cavan and Hon. Sarah Juliana Maxwell, daughter of 6th Baron Farnham.Having succeeded to his families Cavan estates, in 1865 he married Hon. Helena Emily de Moleyns, daughter of 3rd

Baron Ventry the same year he was elected Liberal MP for Cavan for the first time. Losing his seat in 1874, by the timehe was re-elected to the seat for North Armagh in 1885 he had become a prominent Orangeman and Conserative andwas elected the first leader of the newly formed Irish Unionist Party. He was to lead the party from 1885 until his death,from pneumonia, in 1906. He was noted for his uncompromising and morally exact speeches thankfully tinged witha wry sense of humour.

He entered the Cavan Militia (4th battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers) in 1862, was made major in 1875, colonel in 1886 andultimately commanded the battalion from 1891-93. In 1900 he suceeded his cousin, Lord Farnham as Lord Lieutenant

of Cavan, a post he retained until his death.

Privately, Col. Saunderson was a keen yachtsman, designing and racing his own yachts on Lough Erne against localopposition.

A commemorative statue to Col. Saunderson was erected on Market Street, Portadown in 1910.

23. JAMEs RIChARD MARquIs R.h.A. fl. (1853-1885)

Dublin Bay - and Kingstown

Oil on Canvas, 30.7 x 56.3 cm.

Inscribed on original label verso from Cranfields, 115 Grafton Street, Dublin

24. JAMEs RIChARD MARquIs R.h.A. fl. (1853-1885)

Estuary with Shipping

Oil on Canvas, 30.7 x 56.3 cm.


29/32

29

13. JOhn FAuLKnER R.h.A. c. 1830-1880

On the Vartry, County Wicklow

Watercolour on Paper 45.5 x 79.5cm

Signed and dated 1877 also inscribed on reverse

31. BARthOLOMEW COLLEs WAtKIns R.h.A. c. 1833-1891

The Old Weir Bridge, Killarney

Oil on Canvas 33.7 x 52.5cm

Signed, also signed and inscribed on original label verso

Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy 1862, Number 298


30/32

Measurements in centimetres, height precedes width

GALLERY I

1. EDWARD LuttRELL fl. 1673-1724

Illustrated page 21

2. hORACE hOnE A.R.A. 1754-1825

Illustrated page 21

3. nAthAnIEL hOnE thE ELDER R.A. 1718-1784

Illustrated page 21


Illustrated page 14


Illustrated page 14


Illustrated page 14


Illustrated page 12


Illustrated page 10

9. nAthAnIEL hOnE thE ELDER R.A. 1718-1784

Illustrated page 20

10. ChARLEs COLLIns died c. 1744Illustrated page 11

11. JOhn MuLvAnY c. 1839-1906

Illustrated cover and text pages 2-7

12. J.JOhnstOn InGLIs R.h.A. fl. 1885-1903

Illustrated page 15

13. JOhn FAuLKnER R.h.A c. 1830-1864

Illustrated page 29

14. JOsEph MALAChY KAvAnAGh R.h.A. 1856-1918Illustrated page 19

15. MAtthEW JAMEs LAWLEss 1837-1864

Illustrated pages 16 - 18

GALLERY II

16. hELEn COLvILL 1856-1953

From Howth Looking North East

Watercolour on paper 30.5 x 40

Signed, also inscribed with Title VersoIllustrated below

17. FRAnCIs WILLIAM tOphAM R.W.s., 1808-1877

Illustrated page 26

18. ALOYsIus OKELLY 1853-1936

An Oriental Encounter

Watercolour heightened with white on card 21x28

Signed and inscribed lower right,

Aloysius O Kelly, Cairo

OKelly first went to Cairo in 1883 and continued toexhibit Orientalist paintings internationally for almost 30years. This watercolour features a musician on the rightand is probably connected to the unlocated Soudanese

Minstril exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1891. Themusician is recognizable from an illustration by OKell

Exhibition Date changed from Dec 1st. Likely to be Sunday 5th now. Gorry Catalogue Text Nov 2010_Web

Documents

Transcript of Exhibition Date changed from Dec 1st. Likely to be Sunday 5th now. Gorry Catalogue Text Nov 2010_Web