GORRY GALLERY

FRONT COVER: Harry Jones Thaddeus R.H.A 1860-1929 Catalogue Number 8

© GORRY GALLERY LTD.

19. WILLIAM OLIVER fl. 1867-1897

GORRY GALLERY

requests the pleasure of your company at the private view of

An Exhibition of 18th - 21stCentury Irish Paintings

on Sunday 30th March 2014

Wine 3.30 p.m.

30th March - 12th April 2014

This exhibition can be viewed prior to the opening by appointment also on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th March 11.30 a.m. - 5.30 p.m. and Sunday 30th March 12 noon - 3.30 p.m. prior to the

opening and sale of exhibition.

www.gorrygallery.ie

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8. Harry Jones Thaddeus R.H.A. (1860-1929)‘The Friends of the Model’Signed ‘HTHADDEUS JONES/1881’Oil on canvas 116 x 98 cm

EXHIBITED: Paris Salon, 1882 Number 1427 Cork Industrial and Fine Arts Exhibition, 1883, Number 138 Royal Scottish Academy 1883, Number 601LITERATURE: Cork Constitution 4 July 1883 Recollections of a Court Painter by H. Jones Thaddeus, London 1912 The Life and Work of Harry Jones Thaddeus, Brendan Rooney, Four Courts Press, 2003

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The Chapelle de l’Hôpital sits on the rue Vauban, the main thoroughfare leading to the heart of the Ville Close, Concarneau’s medieval fortified island.1 A hospital church built in the sixteenth century, it originally comprised two communal wards from which male and female patients, cared for by nuns, could follow religious services from their beds. By the nineteenth century, however, all that remained of the original structure were part of the walls, including the gable end and large stained glass window looking on to the street.2 It was in this building (fig.1)

that twenty-one-year-old Harry Jones Thaddeus, through the good fortune that appears to have blessed much of his professional life, established his studio for his lengthy stay in the large Breton port. According to the artist himself, the disused chapel had been placed at his disposal by the town’s mayor, and ‘the light from the large Gothic window [served] my purpose admirably’.3

Concarneau had been for several years a popular destination for young artists seeking to apply technical skills recently honed in Europe’s ateliers to subjects from the everyday lives of local people. In the early summer of 1881, Thaddeus travelled to Brittany with a number of his ‘French camarades’ from Paris, where he had studied at the Académie Julian.4 Having spent a short time in the picturesque village and celebrated artists’ colony of Pont Aven, he moved on to Concarneau, where he took lodgings at the Grand Hotel on the mainland.5 Drawing confidence from the triumph of having his interior scene The Wounded Poacher (NGI) accepted for the Salon in Paris that year, and inspired by the endeavour of Concarneau’s artistic community, Thaddeus produced some of his finest work in Brittany. His privileged location at the centre of the old town must surely have aided his development.Though epidemics were relatively common in provincial

France in the nineteenth century, it speaks volumes of Thaddeus’s affection for Concarneau and his ambitions for the art that he would produce there that he remained during an outbreak of pox in 1881 that claimed over a hundred lives in four months.6 ‘At the commencement of the outbreak,’ Thaddeus remembered ‘I invariably had a number of children in this chapel, who took it in turn to pose for a child I was painting in one of my pictures’. One young boy, ‘after posing for a short time’ actually died in the studio.7 Thaddeus’s decision to stay was vindicated by the success he enjoyed the following year. Both The Friends of the Model and Market Day, Finistère

(NGI) (fig.2) featured at the Paris Salon of 1882, where Thaddeus ‘had the pleasure of seeing [them] well placed’.8 Indeed, the pictures’ catalogue numbers indicate that they were hung side-by-side, no doubt as Thaddeus himself had hoped but certainly could not stipulate or expect. The main female character is clearly the same in the two paintings. Indeed, she appears in both in very similar costume,

though in The Friends of the Model her starched coiffe is turned down on her shoulders, and she wears sabots on her feet rather than polished shoes. Though different in size, the paintings were clearly conceived as a pair. While one is a broadly documentary image of everyday life in Concarneau, the other records the environment and manner in which such pictures were executed. As The Friends of the Model suggests, Thaddeus would routinely have completed figurative and local detail in the studio before incorporating it into backgrounds studied in situ. The young woman’s activity, spinning with a distaff and spindle, is typical of the domestic tasks recorded in Breton art of the period.9

In The Friends of the Model, Thaddeus casts himself clearly as engaged with, but separate from, the local Breton community. In fitted jacket, velvet breeches, stockings and a scarlet beret, he appears clearly more boulevardier than paysan. This is all the more obvious when one compares him to the local fisherman who stands close by in a coarse blue smock, heavy trousers and sabots. Even Thaddeus’s carefully groomed moustache contrasts with

(fig.1)

1. The church is also known as la Chapelle de la Trinité.2. The building functions today as an art gallery.3. H.J. Thaddeus, Recollections of a Court Painter, (London 1912), 33.4. Thaddeus, op. cit., 21. 5. Thaddeus, op. cit., 25. For a full account of Thaddeus’s life in France see Brendan Rooney, The Life and Work of Harry Jones Thaddeus, (Dublin 2003).6. Catherine Fauchet, ‘Les crises de la pêche à Concarneau et les politiques municipales 1800-1914’, in Jacques-Guy Petit et Yannick Marec, eds, Le Social dans la Vie en France et en Europe 1750-1914, (Paris 1996), 136.7. Thaddeus, op. cit., 33.8. Thaddeus, op. cit., 35.9. For comparison, see Jules Breton, The Rest of the Haymakers (1872, private collection) and Paul Gauguin, Breton Girl Spinning (1889, Van Gogh Museum).

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the more functional beard sported by the fisherman. Perhaps most remarkable, and incongruous, however, are the artist’s pointed shoes, clearly associated with the fencing items that lie in the foreground to the left. (fig.3)

This sporting panoply distinguishes Thaddeus further from the fisherfolk among whom he lived. Fencing, in France as elsewhere, remained a pursuit of the privileged, and Thaddeus is making here an audacious claim to his position among them. Moreover, his deliberate juxtaposition of the epée, masks and gauntlet with a bottle of turpentine and a bowl for cleaning his brushes serves to underline his role as gentleman-artist.

The figurative detail in the picture owes much to Thaddeus’s study from the model in Paris, though the little boy at the centre of the composition suggests a less academic impulse. Such figures, approaching caricature, were not uncommon in Thaddeus’s work. For example, an awkward character in rural attire – including large sabots and oversized hat – strolls nonchalantly through a Paris fairground in a picture painted less than a year earlier (private collection). Given that these pictures were painted for an urban audience, one could argue that Thaddeus was indulging a perception of Breton people common in Paris. On the evidence of his own writing about Breton peasants, at once fond and mildly patronising, the artist was himself inclined to such views. Alternatively, or perhaps simultaneously, Thaddeus was appealing to a keen appetite among art audiences for sentimental images of children. From studies of bootblacks and juvenile gleaners to portraits of bourgeois infants at leisure, children figured prominently in art throughout Europe in the final decades of the nineteenth century. They were often the subject of Thaddeus’s own

early works, including several Breton pictures.

The Friends of the Artist provides a rare insight into an Irish expatriate artist’s methods and practice. On the wall by the door hangs a study of a Breton pardon, a religious subject favoured by both local and visiting artists in Brittany in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.10 Interiors and figure studies appear elsewhere in the room, including a sketch of the main model spinning. The canvas on the easel, meanwhile, is suspended at an angle by a string and supported at the rear by a bar to allow the artist to sit while painting.

Whereas the finish and tonal character of the work is typical of Naturalist painting of the period, the colour range is resolutely Thaddeus’s own. Flashes of red occur throughout, from the frame of a fencing mask and on the canvas and palette to the tip of the artist’s shoe. The composition also features a distinctive blue that recurs in many of Thaddeus’s paintings, including formal portraits of the 1880s.

Despite its apparent authenticity, however, it is a curiously contrived composition. The young girl seems to continue to pose despite the fact that the artist has set his equipment down and smokes casually while showing a small canvas to two other girls and a child. He is, as it were, providing a private audience in his studio, proudly showing the products of his industry to an approving assembly. The bearded fisherman gestures towards the canvas on the easel, while a young boy appears stupefied by the art before him and the seated male figure, very likely a fellow artist, contemplates the scene through pipe smoke. Thaddeus’s youthful self-regard, which rather qualifies the composition as a whole, is epitomised by the fact that the young girl on the left appears more fascinated by his dashing appearance than the canvas he holds up.

At this point of his fledgling career, Thaddeus still bore his original name, which appears in precisely the same form and style in his more loosely executed Young Breton Fisher Boy (private collection) of the same year.11 He returned some time later, however, to alter the signature on the companion picture Market Day, Finistère so that it corresponded with his adopted name. In 1883, he included The Friends of the Model among a disparate selection of works he contributed to the Cork Industrial and Fine Arts Exhibition in his native city, and later that year reunited the painting with Market Day, Finistère at the annual exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy.

Brendan Rooney

10. Pardons are a uniquely Breton religious festival, which involve 11. The artist changed his name by deed poll in June 1885 to Harry Jones Thaddeus.

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13. Howard Helmick R.B.A., (1840-1907) ‘A Kerry Breakfast’Oil on canvas, 59.5 x 83 Signed & dated lower right ‘H.Helmick ’85’,

The American artist Howard Eaton Helmick was highly regarded during his lifetime as a talented painter and etcher. He was one of the most accomplished subject and figure painters to focus on rural Irish life in the late nineteenth century. The National Gallery of Ireland owns some of his best work, and it has featured increasingly prominently in major recent exhibitions in Cork, Dublin and Boston.

The son of a clerk, he was born in Zanesville Ohio, and trained initially in the artistic department of The Ohio Mechanic’s Institute and then at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Emigrating to Europe, he studied under the award-winning teacher Alexandre Cabanel at Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts. During the following twenty five years, he divided his time between studios in London, Dangan Cottage in Galway and Kinsale in south west Ireland.

Some elements of this conversation piece are reminiscent of themes incorporated in his earlier paintings. He enjoyed portraying the tensions and emotions between mixed groups, couples and families, setting the stage and inviting his audience to interpret and discuss possible narratives, augmented with local objects placed symbolically. Dutch genre painters originated the art of such conversation pieces and subsequently influenced a wave of c.19th artists who depicted Irish rural life through a similar prism. Helmick’s figure and genre paintings were often topical and suggestive, and at times political. Full of warmth for his subject, as an outsider he could also be wryly satirical at times, a stance facilitated by painting in Ireland, yet most often exhibiting in England (where the market was most affluent).

Helmick informs us that this is a working man, identifiable by his hard-wearing, practical garments; his tall felt hat, waistcoat, button fitted knee-breeches, woollen stockings and hobnailed working boots. His long, narrow-bladed spade known as a loy, leaning up beside him, tells that he is a gardener. There were many variations of specialist spades, which had lots of local and practical designs (a sharper type known as a Slane, had an extra cutting wing specifically for turf). The loy was good for making ridges, undercutting and turning sods, as well as for cultivating potatoes and gardening. The setting indicates that they are in the grounds of a so called ‘big house’. The distinctive type of bench built encircling the large tree, the neat gravel paths and what appears to be a vegetable patch in the background, all reinforce this.

The young woman sitting on the wooden wheelbarrow must be unmarried, as she lacks a wedding ring, nor does she wear a bonnet over her red hair. By her feet is a food basket, and she appears to be knitting a stocking as she waits to take the pewter plate, knife and jug back to the house once the meal of white bread is finished. That itself is suggestive of comparative comfort, as white bread was considered special, as opposed to brown bread or potatoes, which was the less expensive staple of most working people. Also she wears shoes, which were another luxury, so much so that they were often removed and carried to make them last, then donned for church or special occasions. It was normal for rural women and children, such as this small girl, to go barefoot, or carry their shoes, if they were fortunate enough to own a pair.

We know that Helmick used models, as some of them do re-appear in different pictures, and they are referred to in texts describing how he worked, as well. This man looks familiar from another of his paintings where he is dressed the same and is sitting on a similarly elaborate wooden wheelbarrow (Gorry Gallery Exhibition of Irish Paintings April-May 1986, Cat.22 ‘The Noonday Rest’ signed and dated 1882).

It’s open to interpretation as to whether both adults work for the people who own ‘the big house’, or if she has brought his food from their nearby farmhouse. Their good clothing and food support the notion that their general status has been raised by such employment, which was a commonly approved moral message in art at that period.

A considerable number of the nearly four dozen paintings that Helmick exhibited in Britain have recently been identified and matched to their titles. Sometimes he repeated in oil what he’d done in watercolour. It is interesting to consider the remaining unmatched titles after this inscribed date. A watercolour named ‘A Kerry Breakfast’ (lent to the Irish exhibition in London in 1888) provides a possible clue to the identity of this oil. As more information in the way of reviews, engravings and watercolours emerges, it may become possible to confirm this.

Dr Claudia Kinmonth

C. Kinmonth ‘Howard Eaton Helmick Revisited; Matrimony and Material Culture through Irish Art’ in V. Krielkamp ed., Rural Ireland: The Inside Story (Exhibition Catalogue, Boston College/McMullen Museum, 2012), 89-102.C. Kinmonth in P. Murray ed., Whipping the Herring: Survival and Celebration in Nineteenth-Century Irish Art (Exhibition Catalogue, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, 2006), 34-45.A.M. Stewart, Irish Art Loan Exhibitions 1765-1927 (Manton, 1990), Vol.1, 319-20.C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006),

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14. Nathaniel Hone R.A. 1718-1784Portrait of Muspratt Williams, ‘A Boy Composing A Garland’Oil on canvas 54x43.7In a pierced carved giltwood frame in the Chippendale manner contemporary with the painting

‘Hone’ notes a recent biographer ‘clearly enjoyed being with children and painted them sympathetically’. He had ten children of his own, five sons and five daughters – though several died prematurely – and among the most sympathetic portraits in his entire oeuvre show his sons Horace (Portrait of a Boy Sketching, c. 1766, NGI) and Camillus, as ‘The Spartan Boy’ (private collection, RA 1775). Some of his child portraits including the present work showing the young Muspratt Williams –

but, tellingly, exhibited at the Royal Academy under the title ‘A Boy Composing A Garland’ – verge on the new genre of the Fancy Picture where the subject matter is as important as the likeness. Hone’s biographer continues: ‘his affinity for children often captures the wistful transiency of childhood surpassed only by Gainsborough. His directness anticipates the next generation of George Romney and Thomas Lawrence’. (Adrian Le Harivel, Nathaniel Hone the Elder, 1718-1784 (Dublin, 1992) p. 30.

EXHIBITED: Royal Academy, 1771, no. 103LITERATURE: Adrian Le Harivel, Nathaniel Hone the Elder, 1718-1784 (Dublin, 1992) p. 30

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3. Agostino Aglio 1777-1857‘The Eagle’s Nest, Killarney’Oil on canvas 71 x 89 cm signed and dated 1842

Agostino Aglio the artist of this charming depiction of the Eagle’s Nest, Killarney, had travelled further then most visitors to this Kerry beauty spot, having been born in Cremona. Educated in Milan he arrived in England in 1803 where he spent the best part of his career working as a scene painter, decorator, lithographer and landscape painter exhibiting views of Italy, Wales and Germany at the Royal Academy between 1807 and 1846. In his unpublished autobiography Aglio notes an early connection with Killarney: ‘Having completed my work I returned to London and my next work of importance was a commission to paint 12 pictures of views of the lake of Killarney in Ireland for a French Gentleman, a merchant of Martinique, at a price of fifty guineas each’. Aglio was not fully paid for this commission, only receiving £180 for ten paintings and at the time he wrote his autobiography two works from the series were in the collection of the Marquis of Landsdowne, rather appropriate given the Kerry corrections of the Petty-Fitzmaurice family. Aglio seems to have renewed his connection with Ireland on several visits. Views of the Abbey on Innisfallen Island and the Sheen Bridge both in County Kerry are known. In 1813 he exhibited in London a painting of Blackwater Bridge. He also drew a very sympathetic portrait sketch of the poet Tom Moore. (See William Laffan (ed.), Painting Ireland, Topographical Views from Glin Castle (2006) 99-100.)

Killarney’s landscape had of course been much admired – and painted – since the mid-eighteenth century particularly after Jonathan Fisher produced several major paintings, engravings and a book on the beauty of its scenery, including a view from a similar standpoint to Aglio’s of The Eagle’s Nest (National Gallery of Ireland). Aglio’s delightful painting, signed and dated 1842, is perhaps less sublime than Fisher’s starker image. It stresses instead the conviviality of the occasion as much as the magnificence of the scenery. Three rowing boats pass through the narrow passage between the lower and upper lakes. In the middle vessel a man stands at the front to blow a trumpet or horn to illustrate the specific acoustic effects for which this part of the lake had been well known since Fisher wrote his Picturesque Tour of Killarney in 1789. In the nearest boys fish, leaving control of the tiller to one of the smartly dressed female companions. High in the sky a pair of eagles hover, reminding us of the origins of the mountain’s name.

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4. Herbert Pugh active c. 1758-1788‘Cows, sheep and goats in a landscape’Oil on canvas 39x47.5Signed and dated 1762

Born in Ireland, Pugh moved to London, settling in Covent Garden. He exhibited at the Society of Artists between 1760 and 1776 where his work was admired by no less than the great connoisseur Horace Walpole. He painted low-life, caricatured genre subjects rather in the manner of Hogarth and also landscapes seemingly influenced by the later period of George Barret, although the influence of Richard Wilson, his neighbour in Covent Garden has also been detected in his work. Pugh’s landscapes were praised by Colonel Grant, the great chronicler of the subject, who described him as ‘very nearly a great artist’.

Within the landscape tradition, Pugh specialized in the genre popularized by Dutch artists such as Aelbert Cuyp who was enormously popular in England and of the forty-five works he exhibited at the Society of Artists about a quarter were landscapes with cattle (Nicola Figgis and Brendan Rooney, Irish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland Vol. 1, 2001, p. 395).

Clearly within this tradition, the present work, signed and dated 1762, is closely related to an example in the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI 1819) dated three years earlier which shows similarly, anthropomorphized cattle,

here joined in a forest glade by sheep, goats and sparing bulls. In the background is a pyramid-shaped funerary monument. Pugh’s work is extremely rare and this is a fine example. The canvas is painted with great brio and enthusiasm, and an element of quirky humour – found in his Hogarthian caricatures – should not be denied this gathering of the species. According to Strickland, Pugh’s ‘intemperate habits hastened his death’ which occurred some time after 1788.

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2. James Arthur O’Connor c. 1792-1841‘Wooded landscape with man and dog on a path’Oil on canvas 35.5x46Signed and dated 1836

EXHIBITED: The Victorian Era Exhibition, Earls Court, London 1897 ’Fine Art Section’ Exhibition Number 722 as “landscape, a peasant and a dog on a road,” lent by the Countess of Normanton. (original label verso)LITERATURE: James Arthur O’Connor: John Hutchinson National Gallery of Ireland, Nov-Dec 1985 p.196PROVENANCE: Christies, London 1876, 5th June, Lot number 49, Purchased for 73 Guineas by Lord Normanton (Vendor D.W. Turquand)

1. George Barret R.A. 1728-1784‘Extensive Landscape with figures and cattle’Gouache on paper 44.3x64.5

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10. John Henry Foley R.A.,R.H.A., 1818-1874‘A young girl’Head and shoulders marble bust, height 43cms.including socleSigned and dated ‘J.H. Foley Sculp . London 1863

EXHIBITED: Royal Hibernian Academy 1863 number 479

The Gorry Gallery in Molesworth Street is an appropriate place to exhibit this recently discovered bust by Foley,the great Irish Victorian sculptor,of the Albert memorial in Hyde Park and Dublin’s O’Connell monument.It is of a girl,perhaps in her early teens,marked RHA 1863.

On St.Stephen’s day 1830 the twelve year old Foley and his friend JJ McCarthy were brought to the Dublin Society’s premises across the road in the precincts of Leinster House.There they saw a reproduction of the Apollo Belvedere,a masterpiece of Leochares.

“This is the sort of thing I’ll spend my life at”,Foley announced to JJ.

In this event, one might say, Foley returns to the scene or the locale of his early inspiration.

We do not have a name for his subject but doubtless the piece is identical to that listed in Strickland’s catalogue of Foley’s works in his Dictionary of Irish Artists (1913):A Young Girl.Marble Bust.RHA 1863.

Rebecca Minch (Dictionary Of Irish Biography) with reference to his statues of John Hampden and John Selden in Westminster says it was “his ability to combine an element of realism with a classical approach to pose that gave his work a vitality and monumentality often felt by contemporary commentaries to be lacking in the sculpture of their day”.

From this perspective,”A Young Girl”,although not a monumental piece,is a characteristic piece.The shape of the head,with its fine bones,is classical,ideal.The hair,mouth and nose are carved in detail and are contemporary.The girl is beautiful,has spirit and a personality.

Presumably the work was commissioned.Did the people who came to the exhibition in the Royal Hibernian Gallery in Lower Abbey Street in May 1863 recognize the subject?Did Foley’s fellow academician,JJ McCarthy,by this time a celebrated architect,know who she was?

Alongside his famous monumental works,Foley’s oeuvre included a series of 20 busts,perhaps more.Sir James Annesley 1848;James Oliver Annesley,1845;William Robert Dickinson 1841;Michael Faraday;Helen Faucit etc.In virtually all cases,the subject is named.The girl of the 1860’s is anonymous,enigmatic,like many of the busts which survive from classical times.Like the bust of An Antonine Lady in carrara marble A.D. 150 now in the Getty museum.

Dublin scarcely celebrates her brilliant son.Foley Street,named after him to recast Montgomery Street with its redlightassociations, now boasts a civic Art institution which breathes not his name.Recent years have nevertheless seen a modest revival of interest.John Turpin’s “John Henry Foley,Sculptor” Dublin Historical Record (June 1974) Paula Murphy’s“John Henry Foley’s O’Connell Monument” Irish Arts Review Yearbook 1995 155/6 and,if I may be so bold, the present writer’s novel “ Foley’s Asia” Lilliput 1999. A superb visual record of Foley’s art is preserved in Sé Merry Doyle’s TV documentary “Ghosts Of Empire “ Loopline Films 2008,shot in Ireland,Britain and India.

Ronan Sheehan February 17th 2014

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It seems that Erskine Nicol did his sketch, on which this painting is based, from a vantage point on the left bank of the Dodder River close to Bella Vista mill in Templeogue, looking south towards the Dublin Mountains. This point is just east of the M50 and the Firhouse Weir.

The Dodder can be seen cutting through the foreground of the picture just beyond the sheep in the field. On the far bank, the land in the floodplain of the river is fertile and well drained. A long line of farm labourers can be seen working in the field at the centre of the painting. Cattle grazing on the rich pastures of Knocklyon and Templeogue were an important source of dairy produce for the people of Dublin well into the 20th century.

Looking to the left of the picture a very small cottage can be seen on a laneway leading down to the riverbank.This was the home of the Purcell family from the early

1920s up to the 1980s when the lands were incorporated into the Dodder Valley Park by the County Council. The foundations of the cottage can still be discerned on the laneway leading through the park from the Firhouse Road.

The substantial farmhouse behind the line of farm workers in the field, which cannot be positively identified, is situated in the townland of Knocklyon. The woodland to the right of this is part of the demesne of Sally Park which belonged to the Handcock family. William Domville Handcock who wrote “The History of Tallaght” was born here in 1830.

The mountains in the background are, from left to right: Kilmashogue, with Three Rock Mountain just above it, then Fairy Castle and Tibradden Mountain. Kellys’ Glen, with its green fields, nestles between them. To the east can be seen the low-lying land stretching towards the coast.

Tomás Maher

5. Erskine Nicol R.S.A., A.R.A. 1825-1904‘View of the Dublin mountains from Templeogue’Oil on canvas 37.5x74Signed and dated 1854, alsoinscribed in the artists hand verso

Painted from a sketch taken on the spot for Henry Todd Esq. Dublin Erskine Nicol October 1854

EXHIBITED: Royal Hibernian Academy 1856 Number 177

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9. Richard Brydges Beechey H.R.H.A. 1808-1895‘Dutch Galliot Running into Harbour” (detail)Oil on canvas 91.5x137.3Signed and dated 1874

EXHIBITED: Royal Hibernian Academy 1874, Number 109

A son of the prominent portrait painter, Sir William Beechey R.A. and Ann, Lady Beechey, a talented miniaturist, Richard Brydges Beechey joined the navy aged 14. Throughout a varied and distinguished career Beechey combined his naval duties with a parallel artistic life as a maritime painter. His extensive naval travels allowed for a wide variety of topographical subject matter from the Arctic expeditions of Captain Markham to Singapore Harbour via numerous coastal views of Britain and Ireland. Indeed, it was his sojurn as a naval surveyor in Ireland, where he met his wife, Frideswaide Smyth, of Portlick Castle, Co. Westmeath before retiring to Monkstown, Co. Dublin in 1864, that led to much of his finest output.

He exhibited extensively at the Royal Academy from 1832-1877 and the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1842-1894.

Sent from his address at 110, Pembroke Road, Dublin, Dutch Galliott running into Harbour was exhibited at the R.H.A. in 1874. This was clearly one of Beechey’s most important paintings bearing the substantial price of £73-10-00, the third most expensive of the 57 pieces he exhibited there over the duration of his career. This dramatic scene of a Dutch ship attempting to reach the shelter of a harbour, most likely in East Anglia, captures the sublime narrative of the impact of surging breakers on the harbour wall bringing with it the near helpless galliott and the desperate attempts at communication between it’s crew and the solitary figure standing precariously at the end of the harbour wall.

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11. EDWIN HAYES R.H.A., R.I., 1820-1904‘Summer weather Great Yarmouth, fishing smacks leaving harbour’Oil on canvas 70x49.5Signed, also signed again, inscribed and dated 1899 on reverse

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14. WILLIAM MULREADY R.A. (1786-1863)‘The Child Sitter’(The Artist Drawing his Daughter)Oil on Wood50.8 x 61 cms.

PROVENANCE: Charles J. Hargitt,With Leggatt Brothers by 1921William Allen Hair (of Hull)His sale Christie’s 28 April 1924, Lot 139 bt SampsonPrivate Collection U.S.A.

EXHIBITED:London, Grosvenor Gallery : A Century of British Art 1787-1837, 1888.Lent by Charles J. Hargitt

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Mulready was born in Ennis, County Clare, the son of an Irish breeches-maker, who took the family to England in 1792. Showing a precocious talent for drawing, he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1800 at the young age of 14. His first attempts were at historical genre and landscape, but it was his domestic genre scenes that brought him to the public’s attention resulting in election at the Academy as A.R.A. in 1815 and R.A. in 1816. He can be classed with Wilkie and Webster as one of the earliest and best exponents of this essentially Dutch-influenced style of painting. The Fight Interrupted (Victoria & Albert Museum) and Idle Boys (Private Coll.) are amongst his best known examples in this vein. Later in his career his style changed. In subject matter his paintings became more imaginary and idealized. In technique they became more highly-coloured and are often cited as fore-runners of the Pre-Raphaelites. Of Mulready’s works John Ruskin wrote : “they remain in my mind as standards of English effort in rivalship with the best masters of Holland”. ‘The Child Sitter’ is at first glance a typical example of Mulready’s earlier genre painting. A young, sensitively depicted artist has come into a fairly humble house to draw a young girl. He has put his hat and gloves down and settles to his work. (fig.1.)

His sitter, a girl of some 6 to 8 years of age perhaps, poses awkwardly for him, twisting her feet in brilliantly observed embarrassment. An intrigued mother – a

laundress or seamstress perhaps if we judge by the mise-en-scene - looks over the artist’s shoulder. Two boys on their way to or from school make up the group. There are typically Mulreadian passages of highly-detailed still-life painting. A dog and a cat, recognizable Mulready touches, are skilfully put in. A washing basket and a sewing basket also receive assiduous attention. We are looking at perhaps one of the earliest depictions of a 19th century genre painter at his trade. A style of painting that was just coming into fashion with Mulready right in the vanguard.

However, there is another, deeper layer to this picture, which in fact represents one of the more exciting discoveries about this artist in recent years. The discovery in this case is in the identification of the personages depicted in the scene. First it has now become clear that the artist depicted must be Mulready himself. F.G. Stephens, writing the catalogue notes for this picture when it appeared in the Grosvenor Gallery Exhibition of 1888 already states that we are looking at an artist “whose face resembles Mulready’s”. However, when we set out to confirm this, most of the Mulready portraits that confront us show us the artist as he wished posterity to recall him – a man in late middle-age, stern, be-whiskered, often be-spectacled, the very essence of the successful member of the Victorian art establishment. Looking more carefully though, we note in those standard portraits his elegant aquiline nose - and note too that this feature is apparent in this present picture as well, where the artist is still a relatively young man. (fig.2.)

fig.2. Portrait of Mulready by A.W.Callcott

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fig.3. Pencil study of Paul Mulready and Mrs Leckie 1826 by Mulready

Professor Aileen Ribeiro of the Courtauld Institute has suggested (Private Correspondence 2008) a date of the early 1820’s for this picture based on her observations of the costumes and so it is at an image of the artist at that period that we must point to make the defining comparison. This is most convincingly confirmed when we look at Augustus Wall Callcott’s portrait of Mulready, reproduced in J.C. Horsley’s Recollections of a Royal Academician. This picture is undated, but the hairstyle and costume would also suggest a date close to 1820. The Callcott portrait, here reproduced, shows unmistakeably the same face as that of the artist in our picture. There can be no doubt that this is a painting of Mulready himself at work.Who then are the other persons depicted in the painting? The other adult is a woman of similar age (in her thirties) standing at the back of the scene looking over his shoulder. Once we take the starting point of the artist’s self-portrait then we might assume the woman to be his wife - but thereby hangs a considerable tale. Mulready’s marriage (to Elizabeth Varley, sister of the famous watercolourist John Varley) was notoriously unhappy and, after the birth of their four sons, the couple separated around 1810. After that point the most consistent female presence in Mulready’s life was that of the somewhat shadowy figure of Elizabeth Leckie. She is variously described as an acquaintance or a housekeeper, although inevitably suggestions have arisen that she was in fact his mistress. It is also apparent that the artist is a visitor in this scene and not at home. Again this points to Elizabeth Leckie, who is known to have kept a lodging house in Kensington and not lived under the same roof as the Mulreadys. Her likeness can now be confirmed as well. The woman in our picture is similar beyond co-incidence to Elizabeth Leckie as she appears in Mulready’s drawing Mrs. Leckie and Paul Augustus Mulready (private collection), dated 1826 and reproduced here. (fig.3. )

The facial expression is the same, the hairstyle is the same. It can only be the same woman.

From there it is an obvious step to identify the girl in the picture as Elizabeth Leckie’s daughter, who was tellingly called Mary Mulready Leckie and was even Mulready’s ward. Mrs Leckie’s husband James Leckie appears to have died or at any rate disappeared very early on in the story. Some initial confusion arises here as there is a known picture by Mulready called Father and Child, which is usually given the date 1828 and is traditionally supposed to represent James Leckie (Elizabeth’s husband) and their daughter Mary. However, if the date and titling of that painting are correct, it must have been worked from a much earlier drawing. Mary cannot have been a baby in 1828 as the descendants of Mary Mulready Leckie have a Mulready drawing of her dated 1834 (here reproduced), (fig.4.) where she is clearly a woman in her late teens or in her

fig.4. Pen and ink study of Mary Mulready Leckie 1834 by Mulready

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twenties. Mary Leckie must then have been born around 1810. Therefore, as say a 6 to 10 year old, she could easily be the girl in our painting. Who else would fit the bill in a family setting where the adults are William Mulready and Elizabeth Leckie?

It would then follow that the boys in the painting are most probably two of Mulready’s own boys. These four were born between 1805 and 1809. If we date the picture around 1817, we are probably safe in assuming that the younger of the two in the picture, seemingly about 8 years old, must be Mulready’s youngest son John (b.1809). The older boy being more adult in appearance could be any one of the other three. However, looking at the above pencil drawing again, and noting in our painting the discrepancy in the two boys’ ages, Paul (b.1805), about 12 at that time, seems the most likely candidate.

If then we are looking at Mulready, his housekeeper/mistress, two of his boys and a girl widely thought to be his natural daughter, then the rather private nature of this picture’s life heretofore also becomes understandable. First, as Stephens notes in the Grosvenor Gallery catalogue of 1888, the picture is slightly unfinished. That would indicate that it was neither a picture painted to commission nor intended for public exhibition. Secondly, this personal feeling is further underlined when Stephens notes also that it was “not before exhibited” and “not in sale at Christie’s April 1864”. This latter was Mulready’s dispersal sale after his death. Accounts of Mulready’s life handed down paint a picture, as Heleniak observes, of a man almost obsessive in his desire to preserve his reputation as being of “sound moral character” and to suppress any details of the “irregularities of his private life”. That being so, the existence of this painting must have been during his lifetime almost akin to unexploded dynamite. In his later years as a considerable figure in public life, Mulready could quite simply not have allowed this picture - a real exposure of his rather un-Victorian private life - to come to light. Not only does its non-appearance in public exhibitions during his lifetime become completely understandable, but it is highly likely also that he would have gifted it to someone in his

close inner circle rather than instruct that it should be sold publicly after his death.

‘The Child Sitter’ thus emerges as a highly important document. On one level we are looking at a typically fine example of William Mulready’s early genre painting, treating rather appositely the actual subject of his trade and underlining his position as one of the earliest and best exponents of this art. But on another we are offered a unique insight into the private world of this strangely un-Victorian painter. Here is the artist in a completely unpretentious setting, surrounded by those dearest to him – his sons, his long-term companion Elizabeth Leckie and her - and in all probability his - young daughter. The year is close to 1820 – the period of the Regency or George IV in fact – and Victorian mores have yet to come into force. So we are looking intriguingly not at the finished public image of this highly successful Irish painter, who rose to the top of the British Victorian art establishment, but at the fascinating reality of his earlier life as he was making his way there.

Bibliography :

F.G. Stephens, Catalogue Notes for the Grosvenor Gallery Exhibition, 1888

Kathryn Moore Heleniak, William Mulready, Yale University Press, 1980

Marcia Pointon, Mulready, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1986

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19. William Oliver (fl.1867-1897),‘The Irish Piper’Oil on canvas, 76.5 x 63.5,Signed and dated lower left, ‘W.Oliver 1874’.

Although William Oliver is already known for his genre and figure painting in England, the accuracy and depth of detail of this characteristically Irish scene demonstrate that he also visited Ireland. He exhibited 15 works at London’s Royal Academy as well as elsewhere. Several of his surviving half-length figures of young women show them dressed in the same palette of pinks and creams that he uses here. Music and dancing is set against the backdrop of a capacious hearth, with the typical floor level turf fire. Above its glowing red embers are suspended are pair of adjustable pot hooks and a crook, for hanging different cooking pots at particular heights. The characteristically round topped, open mouthed bastable pot, useful for boiling stews and potatoes, can just be seen on the far right, with potatoes strewn symbolically across the beaten earth floor nearby. Typically a shebeen or public house would have a hooped barrel, such as is placed far right, and bottles of beer, which can be seen amongst the jugs and basins displayed on the little hanging dresser, with its retaining bars. Furniture in the small Irish cabin was designed to occupy minimal floor space, in order to accommodate ceilidhs and gatherings. So, if there were tables, they often folded up flat against the wall, and beds or settle beds could fold away to create extra floor space.The focus of the painting moves between the piper and the red headed dancer that he admires. With her skirts stylishly tucked up to reveal her pale petticoat, she glances to her left, indicating that other onlookers are gathered in the cabin. She dances barefoot, bringing to mind the poem of J.M. Synge (1871-1909) ‘On an Island’; ‘And now we’ll

drink to jigs and reels, Nailed boots chasing girls’ naked heels.’ The piper’s hobnail boots were typical of what working men would then have worn, and his blue tail coat, woollen stockings and knee breeches, although worn into holes, were still fashionable at that time. He wears his felt hat with its brim upturned and sports a red cravat, at a time when raggedness in the rural population was common, and there was a thriving trade in second hand, and often ill-fitting clothes. Behind him is what appears to be a bed outshot, its entrance concealed by a narrow dark red curtain. This suggests that Oliver was working in a northern or western location, where in colder districts, people benefitted from sleeping in such enclosed discrete beds in close proximity to the fire. Many, like this one, had their own roofs to exclude draughts and dust and to conserve the heat from the sleepers’ bodies and were like minute private room within the main kitchen. Placed on top of this one is an ‘emigrant’s chest’, with its carrying handles and domed lid, and wisps of straw suggesting a hen’s nest. Hens allowed to roost indoors, given light and food through the winter, continued to lay eggs and were a common feature in poor cabins. Above these objects can be glimpsed the unlined underside of the thatched roof.

The piper sits on a board-ended stool, a widespread type that commonly survived until recently.

Dr Claudia Kinmonth

C. Kinmonth, Irish Country Furniture 1700-1950 (Yale University Press, 1993), Chs 1, 3, 6.

C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), Chs 4 & 7.

The piper is depicted very accurately. He is a right-handed player, with the bottom of the chanter resting on his right knee. The position of his hands on the chanter is correct. The left thumb is shown covering the ‘back D’ tone hole and the fingers of each hand are shown in postures that seem to have been standard for the time – the fingertips of the top hand closing the upper tone holes, while the fingers of the lower hand are extended straight across the chanter. Modern practice is to use straight fingers for the upper as well as the lower tone holes.The set of pipes is what would be termed a ‘full set’, i.e. including three drones and three regulators. This configuration had emerged by the 1820s. The top of the chanter has a curved tube emerging from it, which is inserted into the neck of the bag. This has been considered a relatively modern arrangement and it is surprising to see it in a set from this date. Usually, at that time, the neck of the bag would have been tied directly onto the chanter cap which covers the reed. The bass drone – the part nearest the floor – is shown with a ‘sound-box’ at the end of the looped member. The loop is simply to shorten the overall length of the set, and bring the sound-box within reach of the player’s hand. There is no similar need to loop the baritone drone, as in this set, and this is not a commonly seen feature. The appearance of the piper is conventional for the period – after the Famine and before the cultural renaissance of the end of the century. He conforms very well to the trope of the ‘aged bard’ or ‘wandering minstrel’.

Terry Moylan, Archivist, Na Píobairí Uilleann

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6. 7.

Frederick Buck c. 1771 - c.1840Oval MiniaturesWatercolour on Ivory6.5x5.5 approx.

A collection of ten portrait miniatures, contained in two frames, of members possibly of the Robert Bastable family of Kanturk, Co. Cork or the Benjamin Swayne Beamish family. Nine painted by Frederick Buck of Cork and another, possibly by another Cork artist.

Frederick Buck was the son of Jonathan Buck, a silversmith of Castle Street, Cork. His brother was Adam Buck, the portrait miniaturist (1759 – 1833). Frederick Buck regarded himself as the leading miniature artist of Cork. He had a large patronage and was particularly successful during the Napoleonic wars, when Cork was

a significant military and naval centre. He is particularly noted for his fine portraits of military officers. Examples are found in the National Gallery of Ireland, the V & A and other notable collections.

See: Paul Caffrey “Treasures to Hold” Irish and English Miniatures 1650 – 1850. 2000 pages 118 – 119. Daphne Foskett “A Dictionary of British Miniatures Painters” 2 Vols 1972 page 185Walter George Strickland “A Dictionary of Irish Artists” Dublin/London 1913 p.

Frederick Frith c.1809 - c. 1843A collection of Twelve silhouettes, oval 11x8

In Ebonised Frames with acorn decoration each depicting a member of the Little family of Sligo. The reverse of each variously inscribed with a family member’s name and “Drawn by Mr Frith of London” or “Taken by Mr Frith” plus a date varying between 15 July 1841 and 10 September 1843. Some further inscribed “Caldwells Buildings Sligo” and “15 South Mall, Cork”

Mrs E. Neville Jackson “Silhouettes – A History and Dictionary of Artists” 1981 p.107 records Frith, Frederick

as working in Cork and Limerick about 1840. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1809 – 1828 and produced a portrait of Princess Victoria in 1836. “Frith signs freely, but the excellence of his work alone gives us his identity”.

Walter George Strickland “A Dictionary of Irish Artists” Dublin/London 1913 p.384 – 385 records “FRITH fl. C. 1840 – SILHOUETTIST” An artist of this name was working in Cork and Limerick about 1840, chiefly as a silhouettist. It is interesting to note that this artist can now obviously be recorded as working in Sligo in 1841 and Cork in 1842 according to these silhouettes.

Thomas Little was born in 1783 in Galway and practiced as a doctor. He died of cholera on 14 August 1849 Old Market Street Sligo. He had the following children William Swayne Lilttle, Charity Margaret Little, Louisa Swayne Little, Henrietta Emma Little and Francis Little. These names are recorded on the reverse of these silhouettes.

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26. William Mulready 1786-1863‘A study for Crossing the Ford’ (1842)Oil on canvas laid down on board54 x 39.5 cms

LITERATURE: Marcia Pointon, William Mulready 1786 –1863, exhibition catalogue, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1986, p.163. Kathryn Moore Heleniak, William Mulready, New Haven and London 1980, p.128.

Mulready was meticulous in his preparation for his major exhibited paintings, with drawings and oil sketches invariably preceding the final oil on canvas – or in the example of Crossing the Ford, his major work of 1842 now in Tate Britain – oil on mahogany panel. In addition to this detailed compositional oil, preparatory studies exist in pen and ink, chalk and watercolour. All this is rather in keeping with his dedicated professionalism – as a distinguished member of the Royal Academy he continued to attend the life classes side by side with the students in an almost obsessional pursuit of form. This paid off handsomely in the case of Crossing the Ford which the Art Union noted: ‘sustains the high reputation of its author; it is a work of surpassing beauty, grace and excellence – one of the most valuable paintings ever produced in England’ (Art Union, 1842, p.121). The contemporary popularity of the work led it to be among the most frequently copied of Mulready’s compositions. The work, however, was not universally praised. Blackwood’s Magazine criticized Mulready’s innovative use of colour writing that ‘Mr. Mulready has fallen into a reprehensible style of colouring’. On the other hand, the Redgrave brothers wrote that, ‘The works completed by him between 1839 and 1848 are the most perfect in story,

colour and execution of any of his productions. The chiaroscuro is excellent, the colour rich and jewel-like, the execution refined and perfect of its kind.’ (Richard and Samuel Redgrave, A Century of Painters of the English School, London 1866, p. 298.)

As with the completed oil in the Tate, Mulready’s preparatory drawing is visible on the canvas. Given its connection with one of Mulready’s masterpieces this is a major addition to his extant oeuvre.

Tate Britain‘Crossing the Ford’

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24. Edwin Hayes R.H.A., R.I. 1820-1904‘Fishing boat approaching a pier in heavy seas’Oil canvas 51x92Signed and dated 1860

20. William P. Sherlock fl. 1801-1850‘River landscape with romantic couple’Oil on canvas laid down on board 36x48Signed with initials

21. Richard Whately West 1848-1905‘Greystones’Oil on board 15.2x22.8Signed with initials and dated 1886, also fully signed, inscribed and dated verso

28. William Percy French 1854-1920‘Bog lake with heather’Watercolour on paper 25.5x35.7Signed

29. William Percy French 1854-1920‘The mountains of Mourne’Watercolour on paper 26.8x35.5Signed

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Gallery 1 1. George Barret R.A. 1728 - 1784 Illustrated Page 9

2. James Arthur O’Connor c. 1792 - 1841 Illustrated Page 9

3. Agostino Aglio 1777 - 1857 Illustrated Page 7

4. Herbert Pugh active 1758 - 1788 Illustrated Page 8

5. Erskine Nicol R.S.A., A.R.A. 1825 - 1904 Illustrated Page 11

6. /7. Frederick Buck c. 1771 - c. 1840 Illustrated Page 20

8. Harry Jones Thaddeus R.H.A. 1860 - 1929 Illustrated front cover and pages 2,3, and 4

9. Richard Brydges Beechey H.R.H.A 1808 - 1895 Illustrated Page 12, 13

10. John Henry Foley R.A.,R.H.A. 1818 - 1874 Illustrated Page 10

11. Edwin Hayes R.H.A.,R.I. 1820 - 1904 “Summer weather, Great Yarmouth, Fishing Smacks leaving Harbour” oil on canvas 70 x 49.5 signed, also signed, inscribed and dated 1899 on reverse Illustrated page 14

12. Nathaniel Hone The Elder R.A. 1718-1784 Illustrated Page 6

13. Howard Eaton Helmick R.B.A. 1840 - 1907 Illustrated Page 5

14. William Mulready R.A. 1786 - 1863 Illustrated Page 15, 16, 17, 18 and inside front cover (detail)

Gallery 2 15. John Franklin fl. 1819 – 1861 (A set of three drawings) “Temple of Juno Lucina at Arigentum – called Girgenti – Sicily pen and ink on paper 9.7 x 18 inscribed with title; “Pour La Belle Henriette” Pen and ink on paper 15 x 9.3 signed and inscribed; “study of a knight in armour” pen and ink on paper 21 x16 illustrated below.

15.

John Franklin studied at the Dublin Societies Schools commencing in 1819. He exhibited nine works at the R.H.A from 1826 to 1828 and again in 1842. Settling in London he exhibited at the British Institution and the Royal Academy from 1830 to 1861 mainly of subject pictures.He contributed eleven illustrations to Halls “Ireland, it’s scenery and character” and to many other publications including the “Art Journal”

Literature: W.G. Strickland Vol.1.p.383

Measurements in centimetres, Height precedes Width

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21. Richard Whately West 1848-1905Illustrated page 22

22.

22.William Henry Bartlett 1858-1932‘Coastal scene with fishing boats’Oil on canvas 27x49Signed with initials

17. Irish School mid 19th Century‘Rostrevor, Ireland’Pencil on paper 11X18.6Signed with initials F.M.L and inscribed

This charming genre painting, attributed to the Cork artist Edward Sheil (1834-1869), depicts a group of young people in the Irish countryside, sitting at the base of a Celtic high cross, with farm buildings and hills in the distance . The group is composed of two women, a man and a young child. The most important figure is a woman wearing a black shawl and red dress, who sits at the base of a Celtic High Cross, she is knitting as she listens to the young man lying on the ground at her feet, reading from a broadsheet. behind her, inclining her head to one side, another young woman listens to the young man. In the foreground the infants pats the head of a sheepdog. It is an idealised and romanticised scene, conveying a sense of peace and contentment. The farmhouses in the background are substantial two-storey buildings, nestling comfortably in the valley, smoke rising from their chimneys. There is no hint of famine, oppression, eviction or lawlessness, as is often the case with depictions of rural Ireland in the nineteenth century.

The broadsheet in the young man’s hands is titled The Colleen Dubh, (The Dark Girl), possibly a reference to ‘My Dark Rosaleen’ a favourite literary image of Ireland in the nineteenth century, or perhaps it relates to a specific poem or song, such as those penned by Charles Kickham (1822-1882), author of Knocknagow and The Irish Peasant Girl.

17.

16. Erskine Nicol R.S.A., A.R.A. 1825-1904‘Sunset, Fisherman’Watercolour on board 16.5X22Signed and dated 1863

16.

18. Attributed to Edward Sheil R.H.A. 1834-1869‘Colleen Dubh’Oil on canvas 77.5X63.5

18.

19. William Oliver 1867-1882Illustrated page 19

20. William P. Sherlock fl. 1801-1850Illustrated page 22

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This Irish genre painter was praised for his portrait miniatures, as well as caricatures of horses and dogs. He lived in London, and exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere, then became Head of Cork school of Art in the 1850’s. His minutely observed Irish labourers contrast a potential emigrand with a returning immigrant, beside a poster advertising the “Victoria Regina”. Many passenger ships were then named after monarchs, e.g. “The British Queen” (of 1839-40): the largest passenger ship in the world. On the right, the homeward bound labourer carries his sickle (for harvesting everything from corn to seaweed by hand), the tool of his trade, under his arm, along with his possessions strung in a red bundle. Smoking a clay pipe, and sporting a green cravat with his high necked shirt and waistcoat, he loooks well fed and content. He wears full-fall breeches, with blue and white stockings and brogues and his tail coat although worn, is fashionably blue, Inspecting the poster, the potential emigrant lacks tools, socks or a pipe, and his empty pocket suggests he can’t afford a ticket to the “New World” of employment opportunity.Reminiscent of popular lithographs after Erskine Nicol ‘Outward Bound’ & ‘Homeward Bound’ Scanlan topically observes the wave of emigration from Ireland around the time of the Great Famine.

Dr Claudia Kinmonth

25. Edwin Hayes R.H.A., R.I. 1820-1904‘Yarmouth Roads’Oil on board 17x29Signed and dated 1876 also signed and inscribed verso

25.

27. Robert Richard Scanlon c. 1801-1876‘Victoria Regina’oil on board 26x23Signed with Monogram

32.

28/29. William Percy French 1854-1920Illustrated page 22

30. Frederick Frith c.1809 - c. 1843(Set of twelve)Illustrated page 20

31. Style of James George Oben (O’Brien) 1779 - c. 1819‘Fishing party on a lake by a waterfall’Watercolour on paper 27x42

32. ‘Figures on a path by a lake’Watercolour on paper 27.7x41.6Original trade label versoJoseph O’Reilly, 63, Capel Street, Dublin

23. William Davis 1812-1873‘Cutting Corn’Oil on canvas 30x45Signed

23.Dublin born landscape and still life painter. Studied at the Dublin Society’s School and exhibited at the R.H.A before settling in Liverpool, painting with the Pre-Raphaelites and exhibiting at the R.A. 1851-72. Several works by him are in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, including ‘Corner of a Cornfield’. ‘A View of Rye Water’ near Leixlip is in the National Gallery of Ireland.

24. Edwin Hayes R.H.A., R.I. 1820-1904Illustrated page 22

26. William Mulready R.A. 1786-1863Illustrated page 21

27.

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Noel Murphy

36. ‘The Mystery Play’

34. ‘Nude’

37. ‘The Gathering’

All paintings are signed33. ‘Revision’ Acrylic on board 24x1734. ‘Nude’ Acrylic on board 30x19.535. ‘Bandit’ Acrylic on board 30x19.536. ‘The Mystery Play’ Acrylic on board 24.5x1737. ‘The Gathering’ Acrylic on board 17.5x12.538. ‘The Detectives’ Oil on canvas 51x6139. ‘Twilight’ Acrylic on board 19x1540. ‘From Florence’ Oil on canvas 51x4141. ‘Untitled’ Acrylic on board 16x12

Born in London 1970 graduted with a B.A. Hons in Fine Art Painting, University of Ulster Belfast . Also studied at N.C.A.D. Dublin. A frequent exhibitor at the R.U.A and has had many one-man and group shows in Belfast, Derry, London and Dublin.

Works by him are in numerous public and private collections, including Arts Council for Northern Ireland, Ulster Museum and Bass Ireland. His monumental portrait commission of the members of the Northern Ireland Assembly is in the Senate Chamber Parliament Buildings, Stormont.

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Paul KellyBorn in Dublin he has been a full time professional artist for over 25 years. He has exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy and was awarded the James Kennedy Memorial award for portraiture in 1991. Works by him are in public and private collections in Ireland, the Fingal County Library and the Brian P. Burns collection U.S.A. His painting “The Liffey Rowers” was exhibited at the John F. Kennedy Centre for the performing arts, Washington in 2000.

43. ‘Self Portrait’

45. ‘St. Marks Square, Venice’

47. ‘Currach, Tory Island’

All paintings are oil and signed42. ‘O’Connell Bridge’ board 20.5x2543. ‘Self Portrait’ canvas 24x1844. ‘Lambay from Portrane’ canvas 33x4145. ‘St. Marks Square, Venice’ canvas 41x3346. ‘Regatta, Venice’ canvas 33x4647. ‘Currach, Tory Island’ canvas 40x3048. ‘The Forge’ board 30x4049. ‘Gondolier, Bridge of Sighs’ board 25x3050. ‘The River Liffey’ board 25.5x30

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Robert Ballagh

‘Self Portrait III’

51. ‘Self Portrait III’Oil on canvas 49.5x49.5Signed

52. ‘Self Portrait II’Oil on canvas 49.5x49.5Signed

53. ‘A sorry state of affairs’Oil on canvas 50.25x47Signed

‘Self Portrait II’

‘A sorry state of affairs’

Born in Dublin in 1943. He studied Architecture and worked for a time as a professional musician, a postman and an engineering draughtsman. He has been painting on a full time basis since his first exhibition in Dublin in 1969. Ballagh’s work is represented in many important collections including the National Gallery of Ireland, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork, the Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, the Ulster Museum and the Albrecht Dürer House, Nuremberg. Major survey exhibitions of his work have taken place in Lund, Warsaw, Moscow and Sofia. In 2006 a career retrospective was staged in the RHA Gallery, Dublin.

As a graphic designer he has produced book covers, posters, limited edition prints, 66 stamps for the Irish Postal Service and the last Irish bank notes produced by the Central Bank of Ireland.

Robert Ballagh created the imagery and set design for the dance phenomenon RiverDance and the staging for the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics in Croke Park, Dublin.

Robert Ballagh has been an active campaigner for artists rights.He was the founding chairperson of the Association of Artists in Ireland and in 1983 he was elected to the International executive of the International association of Artists, a UNESCO affiliate of over 80 countries. For 3 years he served as treasurer. He is chairperson of the Irish Visual Artists Rights Association.

In 1991 Robert Ballagh was elected chairperson of the national organising commitee for the celebration of the 75th anniversay of the 1916 rising.

He is a member of Aosdána, a self governing trust of Ireland’s most distinguished artists, and is a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science.

Robert Ballagh has been awarded an honourary doctorate in philosophy by the Dublin Institute of Technology and an honourary doctorate of literature byUniversity College Dublin.

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Kenny McKendry

57. ‘Self Portrait’

55. ‘Murlough Bay’

56. ‘Sheepwalk Hill’

All paintings are oil on board and signed54. ‘Entrance to the Woods’ 27x3855. ‘Murlough Bay’ 23x1756. ‘Sheepwalk Hill’ 18x2757. ‘Self Portrait’ 23x1858. ‘The Pietá, Carcassone’ 28x2659. ‘Sundown, Reggies Cottage’ 17x2560. ‘Road to Essouira’ 17x2361. ‘Winter Hilltop II’ 19x2462. ‘Path to Montségur’ 18x2763. ‘Winter Hilltop I’ 16x2164. ‘Morning’ 61x5165. ‘Evening’ 61x5166. ‘The Lemon Bowl’ 14x2167. ‘Marrakesh Doorway’ 23x1768. ‘Late Afternoon, Muck Island’ 14x21

Born in Bangor, County Down 1964 graduated with a degree in illustration from the University of Brighton. A frequent exhibitor at the R.H.A he has painted portraits of Sir James Galway and John Hume. Works by him are in numerous private and public collections including Department of Environment of Northern Ireland, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Laganside High Court, Belfast, University of Brighton, The Aldrich Collection, Brighton, H.R.H. Princess Anne, Brian P. Burns Collection, U.S.A. Coolmore Stud, Corpus Christi College Oxford and the Green Templeton College, Oxford.

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69. ‘Self Portrait with Seneca’

Born 1980 Pery Square, Limerick City. Educated Clongowes Wood College. He then went on to read business and law at U.C.D. and received a classical training at the Charles H. Cecil studios, Florence. Exhibited at the R.H.A. and won the James Adam Award for a self portrait.

72. ‘Still Life - Training Saddle’

69. ‘Self Portrait with Seneca’ oil on canvas 95 x 130 signed

70. ‘Rustic still life’ oil on canvas 56 x 72 signed

71. ‘Self portrait with red cravat’ oil on canvas 61 x 46 signed

72. ‘Still life - Training Saddle’ oil on canvas 91.5 x 66 signed

73. ‘Kinsale Fish’oil on canvas 25.5 x 36 signed

Gearóid Arthur Hayes B. 1980

70. ‘Rustic Still Life’

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Aglio, Agostino 7

Ballagh, Robert 28

Bartlett, William Henry 24

Barret, George 9

Beechey,Richard Brydges 12,13

Buck, Frederick 20

Davis, William 25

Foley, John Henry 10

Franklin, John 23

French, Percy 22

Frith, Frederick 20

Hayes, Edwin 14,22,25

Hayes, Gearóid 30

Helmick, Howard 5

Hone, Nathaniel 6

Irish School 24

Kelly, Paul 27

McKendry, Kenny 29

Mulready, William 15,16,17,18,21

Murphy, Noel 26

Nicol, Erskine 11,24

Oben, James George 25

O’Connor, James Arthur 9

(inside front cover)

Oliver, William 19

Pugh, Herbert 8

Scanlan, Robert Richard 25

Sheil, Edward 24

Sherlock, William 22

Thaddeus, Harry Jones 2,3,4

West, Richard Whately 22

Index of Artists

Page Page

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Notes

We are grateful to the following for their kind assistance in the preparation of this catalogue

Christopher Ashe

Nicholas Bagshawe

Gillian Buckley

Dr. Peter Harbison H.R.H.A.

Ian Haslam

Dr. Claudia Kinmonth M.A.(R.C.A.) PhD

William Laffan

Richard Lawton

Tomás Maher

Terry Moylan

Susan Mulhall

Peter Murray

Colin Rafferty

Dr. Brendan Rooney

GORRY GALLERY, 20 MOLESWORTH STREET, DUBLIN 2. TELEPHONE and FAX 679 5319The Gallery is open Monday - Friday 11.30 a.m. - 5.30 p.m.

Saturday (during exhibition only) 11.30 a.m. - 2.30 p.m.www.gorrygallery.ie

Origination and Printing by W&G Baird