Gallery 1 - Gorry Gallery

G OR RY G A L L E RY
19. WILLIAM OLIVER fl. 1867-1897
FRONT COVER: Harry Jones Thaddeus R.H.A 1860-1929
Catalogue Number 8
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GORRY GALLERY
requests the pleasure of your company at the private view of
An Exhibition of 18th - 21st
Century Irish Paintings
on Sunday 30th March 2014
Wine 3.30 p.m.
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
30th March - 12th April 2014
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 601
LITERATURE: 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
2
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 sideby-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
(fig.2)
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
(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
Photo © National Gallery of Ireland
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)
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
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
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
The church is also known as la Chapelle de la Trinité.
The building functions today as an art gallery.
H.J. Thaddeus, Recollections of a Court Painter, (London 1912), 33.
Thaddeus, op. cit., 21.
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).
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.
Thaddeus, op. cit., 33.
Thaddeus, op. cit., 35.
For comparison, see Jules Breton, The Rest of the Haymakers (1872, private collection) and Paul Gauguin, Breton Girl Spinning (1889, Van Gogh Museum).
3
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)
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.
(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
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.
4
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 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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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.
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 NineteenthCentury 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),
5
14. Nathaniel Hone R.A. 1718-1784
Portrait of Muspratt Williams, ‘A Boy Composing A Garland’
Oil on canvas 54x43.7
In a pierced carved giltwood frame in the Chippendale
manner contemporary with the painting
EXHIBITED: Royal Academy, 1771, no. 103
LITERATURE: Adrian Le Harivel, Nathaniel Hone the Elder, 1718-1784 (Dublin, 1992) p. 30
‘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.
6
3. Agostino Aglio 1777-1857
‘The Eagle’s Nest, Killarney’
Oil on canvas 71 x 89 cm
signed and dated 1842
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.
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 PettyFitzmaurice 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.)
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4. Herbert Pugh active c. 1758-1788
‘Cows, sheep and goats in a landscape’
Oil on canvas 39x47.5
Signed 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’.
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,
Photo © National Gallery of Ireland
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).
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.
8
2. James Arthur O’Connor
c. 1792-1841
‘Wooded landscape with man and
dog on a path’
Oil on canvas 35.5x46
Signed and dated 1836
EXHIBITED: LITERATURE: PROVENANCE: 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)
James Arthur O’Connor: John Hutchinson National Gallery of Ireland, Nov-Dec 1985 p.196
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
9
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.
10. John Henry Foley R.A.,R.H.A.,
1818-1874
‘A young girl’
Head and shoulders marble bust, height 43cms.
including socle
Signed and dated ‘J.H. Foley Sculp . London 1863
EXHIBITED: Royal Hibernian Academy 1863
number 479
Dublin scarcely celebrates her brilliant son.Foley
Street,named after him to recast Montgomery Street with
its redlight
associations, 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.
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.
Ronan Sheehan February 17th 2014
“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.
10
5. Erskine Nicol R.S.A., A.R.A. 1825-1904
‘View of the Dublin mountains from Templeogue’
Oil on canvas 37.5x74
Signed and dated 1854, also
inscribed 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
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.
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 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.
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
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
11
9. Richard Brydges Beechey H.R.H.A. 1808-1895
‘Dutch Galliot Running into Harbour” (detail)
Oil on canvas 91.5x137.3
Signed 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.
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.
He exhibited extensively at the Royal Academy from
1832-1877 and the Royal Hibernian Academy from 18421894.
12
9.
13
11. EDWIN HAYES R.H.A., R.I., 1820-1904
‘Summer weather Great Yarmouth, fishing smacks leaving harbour’
Oil on canvas 70x49.5
Signed, also signed again, inscribed and dated 1899 on reverse
14
14. WILLIAM MULREADY R.A. (1786-1863)
‘The Child Sitter’
(The Artist Drawing his Daughter)
Oil on Wood
50.8 x 61 cms.
PROVENANCE:
Charles J. Hargitt,
With Leggatt Brothers by 1921
William Allen Hair (of Hull)
His sale Christie’s 28 April 1924, Lot 139 bt Sampson
Private Collection U.S.A.
EXHIBITED:
London, Grosvenor Gallery : A Century of British Art 1787-1837, 1888.
Lent by Charles J. Hargitt
15
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”.
laundress or seamstress perhaps if we judge by the miseen-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 stilllife 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.)
‘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.)
fig.2. Portrait
of Mulready by
A.W.Callcott
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
16
The facial expression is the same, the hairstyle is the
same. It can only be the same woman.
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. )
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.3. Pencil
study of Paul
Mulready and
Mrs Leckie
1826 by
Mulready
fig.4. Pen and ink study of Mary Mulready Leckie 1834 by
Mulready
17
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?
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.
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 unVictorian 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
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
18
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.
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’.
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’.
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
Terry Moylan, Archivist, Na Píobairí Uilleann
19
Frederick Buck
c. 1771 - c.1840
Oval Miniatures
Watercolour on Ivory
6.5x5.5 approx.
6.
7.
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.
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 185
Walter George Strickland “A Dictionary of Irish Artists”
Dublin/London 1913 p.
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
Frederick Frith c.1809 - c. 1843
A collection of Twelve silhouettes, oval 11x8
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.
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”
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.
Mrs E. Neville Jackson “Silhouettes – A History and
Dictionary of Artists” 1981 p.107 records Frith, Frederick
20
26. William Mulready 1786-1863
‘A study for Crossing the Ford’ (1842)
Oil on canvas laid down on board
54 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’
21
24. Edwin Hayes R.H.A., R.I. 1820-1904
‘Fishing boat approaching a pier in heavy seas’
Oil canvas 51x92
Signed and dated 1860
20. William P. Sherlock fl. 1801-1850
21. Richard Whately West 1848-1905
28. William Percy French 1854-1920
29. William Percy French 1854-1920
‘River landscape with romantic couple’
Oil on canvas laid down on board 36x48
Signed with initials
‘Greystones’
Oil on board 15.2x22.8
Signed with initials and dated 1886, also fully
signed, inscribed and dated verso
‘Bog lake with heather’
Watercolour on paper 25.5x35.7
Signed
‘The mountains of Mourne’
Watercolour on paper 26.8x35.5
Signed
22
Measurements in centimetres, Height precedes Width
Gallery 1
Gallery 2
1.George Barret R.A. 1728 - 1784 Illustrated Page 9
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.
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
15.
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)
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
23
16. Erskine Nicol R.S.A., A.R.A. 1825-1904
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.
‘Sunset, Fisherman’
Watercolour on board 16.5X22
Signed and dated 1863
16.
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. Irish School mid 19th Century
‘Rostrevor, Ireland’
Pencil on paper 11X18.6
Signed with initials F.M.L and inscribed
19. William Oliver 1867-1882
Illustrated page 19
20. William P. Sherlock fl. 1801-1850
Illustrated page 22
17.
21. Richard Whately West 1848-1905
18. Attributed to Edward Sheil R.H.A.
1834-1869
22.William Henry Bartlett 1858-1932
Illustrated page 22
‘Colleen Dubh’
Oil on canvas 77.5X63.5
‘Coastal scene with fishing boats’
Oil on canvas 27x49
Signed with initials
22.
18.
24
23. William Davis 1812-1873
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 PreRaphaelites 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.
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.
24. Edwin Hayes R.H.A., R.I. 1820-1904
Dr Claudia Kinmonth
25. Edwin Hayes R.H.A., R.I. 1820-1904
28/29. William Percy French 1854-1920
‘Cutting Corn’
Oil on canvas 30x45
Signed
23.
Illustrated page 22
Illustrated page 22
‘Yarmouth Roads’
Oil on board 17x29
Signed and dated 1876 also signed and inscribed verso 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 27.7x41.6
Original trade label verso
Joseph O’Reilly, 63, Capel Street, Dublin
25.
26. William Mulready R.A. 1786-1863
Illustrated page 21
27. Robert Richard Scanlon
c. 1801-1876
‘Victoria Regina’
oil on board 26x23
Signed with Monogram
32.
27.
25
Noel Murphy
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.
36. ‘The Mystery Play’
37. ‘The Gathering’
All paintings are signed
33. ‘Revision’ Acrylic on board 24x17
34. ‘Nude’ Acrylic on board 30x19.5
35. ‘Bandit’ Acrylic on board 30x19.5
36. ‘The Mystery Play’ Acrylic on board 24.5x17
37. ‘The Gathering’ Acrylic on board 17.5x12.5
38. ‘The Detectives’ Oil on canvas 51x61
39. ‘Twilight’ Acrylic on board 19x15
40. ‘From Florence’ Oil on canvas 51x41
41. ‘Untitled’ Acrylic on board 16x12
34. ‘Nude’
26
Paul Kelly
Born 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’
47. ‘Currach, Tory Island’
All paintings are oil and signed
42. ‘O’Connell Bridge’ board 20.5x25
43. ‘Self Portrait’ canvas 24x18
44. ‘Lambay from Portrane’ canvas 33x41
45. ‘St. Marks Square, Venice’ canvas 41x33
46. ‘Regatta, Venice’ canvas 33x46
47. ‘Currach, Tory Island’ canvas 40x30
48. ‘The Forge’ board 30x40
49. ‘Gondolier, Bridge of Sighs’ board 25x30
50. ‘The River Liffey’ board 25.5x30
45. ‘St. Marks Square, Venice’
27
Robert Ballagh
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.
‘Self Portrait III’
51. ‘Self Portrait III’
Oil on canvas 49.5x49.5
Signed
52. ‘Self Portrait II’
Oil on canvas 49.5x49.5
Signed
53. ‘A sorry state of affairs’
Oil on canvas 50.25x47
Signed
‘A sorry state of affairs’
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.
‘Self Portrait II’
28
Kenny McKendry
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.
57. ‘Self Portrait’
56. ‘Sheepwalk Hill’
All paintings are oil on board and signed
54. ‘Entrance to the Woods’ 27x38
55. ‘Murlough Bay’ 23x17
56. ‘Sheepwalk Hill’ 18x27
57. ‘Self Portrait’ 23x18
58. ‘The Pietá, Carcassone’ 28x26
59. ‘Sundown, Reggies Cottage’ 17x25
60. ‘Road to Essouira’ 17x23
61. ‘Winter Hilltop II’ 19x24
62. ‘Path to Montségur’ 18x27
63. ‘Winter Hilltop I’ 16x21
64. ‘Morning’ 61x51
65. ‘Evening’ 61x51
66. ‘The Lemon Bowl’ 14x21
67. ‘Marrakesh Doorway’ 23x17
68. ‘Late Afternoon, Muck Island’ 14x21
55. ‘Murlough Bay’
29
Gearóid Arthur Hayes B. 1980
69. ‘Self Portrait with Seneca’
oil on canvas 95 x 130 signed
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.
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
72. ‘Still Life - Training Saddle’
70. ‘Rustic Still Life’
30
Index of Artists
Page
Page
Aglio, Agostino7
Kelly, Paul27
Ballagh, Robert28
McKendry, Kenny29
Bartlett, William Henry
24
Mulready, William
15,16,17,18,21
Barret, George9
Murphy, Noel26
Beechey,Richard Brydges
Nicol, Erskine11,24
12,13
Buck, Frederick20
Oben, James George
25
Davis, William25
O’Connor, James Arthur
9
Foley, John Henry
(inside front cover)
10
Franklin, John23
Oliver, William19
French, Percy22
Pugh, Herbert8
Frith, Frederick20
Hayes, Edwin14,22,25
Sheil, Edward24
Hayes, Gearóid30
Sherlock, William22
Helmick, Howard5
Thaddeus, Harry Jones
2,3,4
Hone, Nathaniel6
West, Richard Whately
22
Irish School24
31
Scanlan, Robert Richard
25
Notes
32
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 5319
The 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