Gorry Gallery An Exhibition of 18th - 21st Century Irish Paintings May 2019 by James Gorry

GORRY GALLERY

44. James Petrie (1750-1819) Robert Emmet Graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx. Signed

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1. Joseph Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Reilly ARHA (1865-1893) Detail

GORRY GALLERY Requests the pleasure of your company at the private view and sale of

An Exhibition of 18th -21st Century Irish Paintings 23rd May -8th June Opening on Thursday 23rd May at 6pm This exhibition can be viewed prior to the opening by appointment, and also on Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd May and on the day of the opening from 11.30am - 5.30pm

All measurements in this catalogue are in centimetres (height precedes width)

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1. Joseph O’Reilly ARHA (1865-1893) Contributions Earnestly Solicited Oil on canvas, 96.5 x 62 Signed and dated 1890 Inscribed verso: Contributions Earnestly Solicited Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy, 1891, cat.no.97, £30 Provenance: Important Irish Art, Adam’s 26 March 2013, lot 92 Literature: Claudia Kinmonth, ‘Joseph O’Reilly, Contributions Earnestly Solicited,’ in Important Irish Art, Adams, Dublin, 2013, p.92-93, illustrated

Joseph O’Reilly ARHA (1865-1893) Contributions Earnestly Solicited In his painting, Contributions Earnestly Solicited, Joseph O’Reilly shows an interior scene, where a boy in a red waistcoat, seated upon a wooden chair, is about to feed his pet dogs and cat, who wait expectantly. The room is relatively sparse but contains a window, table, two chairs and a stool, a hanging blanket, and an array

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of still-life objects, lit by daylight falling from different sources. O’Reilly was of a circle of gifted young Realist painters centred around Walter Osborne, including Joseph M. Kavanagh, Nathaniel Hill, Richard T. Moynan, Dermod O’Brien and Henry Allen, who having studied in Dublin and Antwerp or Paris, introduced a new spirit of Naturalism into Irish art. O’Reilly is one of the least known because, as W.G. Strickland notes, his career was cut short by his early death from tuberculosis at the age of twenty eight. Moreo-

ver, there is only one painting by him in a public collection – (the National Gallery of Ireland). Yet he was one of the most gifted artists of his generation, winning many awards in his student days, exhibiting at the Royal Hibernian Academy (rha) and Dublin Art Club (dac), and being admired by his contemporaries. His work seems to combine aspects of 19th century Genre with Social Realism, often with an autobiographical element. Joseph O’Reilly was born in 1865, (an exact contemporary of O’Brien and Moynan), into a family of humble means in Upper Grangegorman, Dublin.1 He studied in the Metropolitan School of Art, 1881-1885, and at the rha, c.1885-1888, being admired as a brilliant student, and winning many awards and prizes: silver medal for drawing, 1885; Albert Scholarship, and Taylor Prizes at the Royal Dublin Society, 1887; scholarship for painting 1889; Taylor Scholarship, 1890. While still a student, he exhibited at the rha and Dublin Art Club, his work included figure studies, portraits, landscapes and genre scenes. He became a friend of Osborne’s, who encouraged him to go to Paris to study. O’Reilly studied in the atelier of Delecluse, c.18881889. Several paintings, for example, Parisian Girl, 1889 and Italian Flower Girl, Torso of a Boy and Head and Shoulders of a Girl, (ngi), show the influence of his French training, the latter picture being praised for its modern, realistic depiction of a nude figure.2 The most striking colour in the present picture, Contributions Earnestly Solicited, is the red waistcoat which the boy wears, which really lights up the painting. He also wears a loose white shirt and turned-up trousers, and his feet are bare. His hair is neat and his face and hands are skilfully painted. He is seated upon a chair with rounded back, identified by Claudia Kinmonth as a Thonet bentwood chair,3 and silhouetted against a hanging Foxford-type blanket. In his left hand he holds a large bowl, in his right a spoon, preparing to feed his pets: a small King Charles Spaniel perched upon a stool in begging position, (the stool half-covered by a cloth); and a larger Terrier-type dog and tortoiseshell cat upon the floor, who look up expectantly at him. To the background right is a bare table with a potted flower, and a window through which daylight shines. Light also falls from the left, lighting up objects which are positioned around the boy: cup and saucer, tall jug and chunk of bread or cheese on a cloth on a carpenter’s chair;4 and an array of still life objects upon the floor

in the left-hand corner: watering can, pottery mixing bowl, three glass bottles of different shapes, a few vegetables, and jars or cans arranged upon a bed of wood shavings, each object painted with great precision. We notice, for example, the skilled depiction of the boy’s face and hands; the folds of his white sleeves and in the blanket, upper left; the fur of the little dog; the beautifully represented pottery objects: bowl with a slender red rim, white jug with a pale blue stripe; and delicately painted glass bottles. In contrast, O’Reilly uses more ‘blurred’ brushstrokes in the floor below the window. The overall tonality of the picture is of a pale ochre. O’Reilly also favours a pale olive green in the table, stool and watering can. However, the scarlet waistcoat lights up the boy’s face, and is seen again in the rim of the bowl, the edge of the blanket and the tin on the floor. The background of the picture is like a simple domestic interior, but the foreground resembles a studio space, the objects carefully arranged to challenge the artist in his art school assessments or awards. Also notable is the way that O’Reilly juxtaposes vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines, for instance in the angles of the table and chairs, to create a sense of depth. The boy is similar to a lad who is featured in one or two other paintings by O’Reilly. His hand holding a spoon poised in the air, his legs suspended above the floor, and the begging dog, create a sense of expectancy, while the riddling title of the picture adds a slight sense of enigma. O’Reilly also displays an interest in the paintings of contemporaries and other artists.5 Contributions Earnestly Solicited is one of a series of delightful Genre and Realist paintings, including A Young Girl’s Toilet, 1887, An Interesting Game, which feature barefoot boys playing cards, Retribution, and The Tinsmith,6 dealing with themes of childhood, schooldays, education and craftmanship, sometimes displaying a wry or mischievous humour, the artist most likely drawing on vivid memories of his own Dublin childhood. Julian Campbell

W.G. Strickland, Dictionary of Irish Artists, 1913; Irish Academic Press, Blackrock, 1989, p.201. See also The Irish Impressionists, ngi, 1984, p.95, 233-234; N. Figgis, (Irish) Painting, 1600-1900, ria/Yale, 2014, p.411-412.

Jeanne Sheehy, Irish Art in the Nineteenth Century, Cork, 1971, no.108, p.60.

Claudia Kinmonth, ‘Joseph O’Reilly, Contributions Earnestly Solicited,’ Important Irish Art, Adams, 26 March 2013, p.88-89.

C. Kinmonth, 2013, p.88.

Eg. The theme of children playing with pets was one often represented by Osborne, eg. In A Tempting Bait, 1882. Studio pictures with still life objects arranged upon the floor were frequently painted in the 19th century, eg. In The Artistic Discussion by Aloysius O’Kelly, exh. The French Influence, Gorry Gallery, 2004, no.2. The calm interior in the background of O’Reilly’s painting recalls that in The Tea Break by Sarah C. Harrison, The Irish Sale, Sotheby’s 20 May 1997, lot 237, the foxford blanket is quite similar to that which appears in Convalescence by Nathaniel Hill.

An Interesting Game, Gorry Gallery, 1987, no.45; Retribution, Important Irish Art, Adams, 28 September 2016, lot 57; The Tinsmith, Important Irish Art, Adams, 2 December 2015, lot 72.

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2. William Sadler II (c.1782-1839) The Battle of the Boyne, 12th July 1690, Boyne House in the Distance Oil on wood, 57.3 x 88.2 Literature: Anne Crookshank, The Knight of Glin and William Laffan, Masterpieces by Irish Artists, 1660-1860, Exhibition Catalogue, Pyms Gallery (London, 1999) 55 and 58 and Fig 9a

3. William Sadler II (c.1782-1839) A View of Sackville (Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell) Street, Dublin Oil on wood, 22.3 x 33 In original gilt frame of a design favoured by Sadler

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William Sadler ii (c.1782-1839) The Battle of the Boyne, 12th July 1690, Boyne House in the Distance A View of Sackville (O’Connell) Street, Dublin Sadler’s view of Sackville (O’Connell) Street, is one of the most charming evocations of late Georgian Dublin. It serves as the very visualisation of the remarks of Anne Crookshank, the Knight of Glin and Desmond Guinness in their pioneering exhibition catalogue, Irish Houses and Landscapes (1963): ‘We look back now on this era with a certain longing: what a splendid elegance is suggested by those views of a Dublin when one could drive down the redbrick O’Connell Street to the palladian Rotunda buildings which were set in a park still serene with grass and trees’. While this is certainly a rose-tinted view of nineteenth-century Dublin, ignoring the poverty that plagued the city, it must be said that O’Connell Street today with its amusement arcades, fast food restaurants and boarded up buildings, has certainly not improved in the two centuries since Sadler captured its streetscape. Alive to the scenographic nature of Sackville Street’s architecture (and one of many artists to record it, including Joseph Tudor, James Malton and Henry Brocas), Sadler shows Francis Johnston’s General Post Office, built just a few years earlier between 1814 and 1817. Naturally Nelson’s Pillar dominates the centre of the composition. It was inaugurated on 21 October 1809, on the fourth anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar the date of which is shown by Sadler engraved, below the name of the dedicatee and that of the battle at which he had fallen. In the distance can be seen the Rotonda Hospital. For all the architectural splendour of the public buildings and the great monument, the immense charm of the painting rests in the small details of the streetscape – the shop signs, street furniture, and the smoke billowing from chimneys, and also in the picture of Regency Dubliners going about their business. Sadler painted the Dublin of the early nineteenth century with great affection and a journalist’s eye for detail and incident. Although he also painted

in Killarney and elsewhere, Dublin and its surroundings was the milieu in which he felt most at home. He was to document his city and its suburbs in a series of carefully observed works which have a great sense of immediacy and truth. In utter contrast to this quiet scene of quotidian urban life, is a scene of death and destruction, Sadler’s Battle of the Boyne with Boyne House (now Stackallan House) in the Distance. King William on a white horse leads the charge across the river. This is one a series of battle pictures by Sadler in which he adapts the tradition of artists such as Philips Wouwerman (1619-68) to depict current and historical warfare. From recent history he painted the Battles of Waterloo and Copenhagen, The Bombardment of Algiers and the, now lost, Battle of Navarino which he exhibited at the rha in 1828, the year after the naval engagement was fought. Here he paints the crucial, but far from decisive, battle fought on the river Boyne between King James II and his son-in-law William of Orange. Although sixty thousand men converged on the river at Oldbridge, casualties in the battle were modest, and the Jacobite army survived to fight again at Aughrim. However, the technical defeat inflicted was greatly exacerbated by James’s decision to flee the battleground for Dublin, and subsequently France, thus handing victory to the invaders. The Prince of Orange is shown here on his white charger, iconic in Williamite lore, although he was in fact mounted on a black horse. This is one of Sadler’s most ambitious works and can be compared directly to the even larger and more complex Battle of Waterloo (private collection). In both pictures Sadler includes a repoussoir tree, framing the left side of the composition with a movement from right to left, anchored around an off-centre plume of smoke. The stylised morphology of the figures, delineated by small nervous brush strokes with flicks of white highlighting is common to both pictures. Sadler was born in about 1782, his father, also William was an artist. He contributed to various Dublin exhibitions, including the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1809 to 1833. In 1838 the auctioneer C. Bennett sold the ‘entire of last year’s paintings’ which included an Eruption of Mount Vesuvius (Gorry Gallery, June 2018), Burning of the Royal Exchange, Wreck of the Killarney and Burning of the Arcade in College Green. He died at home in Manders Buildings, Ranelagh the following year.

4. William Sadler III (b.1808) The Battle of Vinegar Hill 1798 Pen, ink and watercolour on paper, 20 x 33.5 With old inscription: Charge of the 4th (sic) Dragoon Guards on Green Horse at the Battle of Vinegar Hill 1798. Original pen sketch by Sadler (N.B. This inscription should read the 5th Dragoon Guards). 5. William Sadler II (c.1782-1839) Landscape with Castle by a River Oil on wood, 21.5 x 32

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6. John Henry Campbell (1757-1829) Coastal Landscape with Figures on a Path Perhaps Looking towards Wicklow Head Watercolour on paper, 13 x 17 Signed

7. John Henry Campbell (1757-1829) View of the Great Sugar Loaf Watercolour on paper, 17.6 x 24.5

John Henry Campbell (1757-1829) Coastal Landscape with Figures on a Path Perhaps Looking towards Wicklow Head

John Henry Campbell (1757-1829) View of the Great Sugar Loaf

The rocky foreground with an overhanging tree dominates this view looking towards the coast. A youth leads a donkey with panniers uphill along a track, while a family group – parents and child – walk downhill. The child is pointing, perhaps towards the sailing ship in the bay. There is a promontory in the distance crowned by a pair of towers, one larger than the other.

This attractive view of the Great Sugar Loaf with the light catching its peak shows it from the north, evidently from the vicinity of Fassaroe, just outside Bray. A bridge is just visible over what is probably the Dargle near its junction with the Cookstown river. Three figures are positioned in front of a steeply-roofed thatched cottage with a central door, and a row of crude uprights across the stream appear to indicate a boundary.

Cecilia Margaret Nairn (1791-1857) Oak Island, Killarney Cecilia Margaret Nairn was the daughter of the landscape painter John Henry Campbell from whom she received her earliest instruction in painting. She exhibited widely in Dublin from 1809 and was praised by Strickland as ‘a clever painter both in oil and water-colour’. In 1826 she married the horse painter George Nairn. Their son John Campbell Nairn) trained as an artist and later worked as a copyist and restorer. Their daughter Anne exhibited at the rha from 1845 to 1848 and married the architect Robert William Armstrong. 8. Cecilia Margaret Nairn (née Campbell) (1791-1857) Oak Island, Killarney Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 60.8 Inscription verso: Painted by Cecilia Nairn ... 1852. Oak Island, from the Bedding, Near the ... Mountain in the Distance, Killarney

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9. James Arthur O’Connor (1792-1841) View from Killiney Looking to Bray Oil on canvas, 30.2 x 40.4 Exhibited: Exhibition of the Artists of Ireland at Dublin’s Society House, 1819, J.A. O’Connor, 18 Dawson Street, no.33 Literature: Thomas Bodkin, Four Irish Landscape Painters (Dublin and London, 1920) p. 97 John Hutchinson. James Arthur O’Connor (Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 1985), 191

James Arthur O’Connor (1792-1841) View from Killiney looking to Bray The distinctive conical peaks of the Great and Little Sugar Loaf mountains dominate the horizon in this extensive view looking southwards towards County Wicklow. It is easy to see why the peaks were once commonly believed to be extinct volcanoes. In fact, they are made of hard and shining quartzites resistant to erosion, and this is reflected in their old name of Gilt Spurs or Spears. Bray Head at the left, although also of ancient rocks, is of a more rounded shape rising steeply from the Irish Sea. The foreground shows the slopes of Killiney Hill, with its rocky outcrops and Martello tower no 7 catching the sunlight. The Martello towers around Dublin Bay were built in 1804–05 as defences against possible Napoleonic invasion: this tower, built higher above the shoreline than most, survives today. The rich farmland between Killiney and Bray is shown in shadow to match the threatening clouds overhead, although the field boundaries are faintly visible. Mary Davies

Exhibited in the 1819 exhibition of the Artists of Ireland at the Dublin Society’s house in Hawkins Street, this view of Killiney Hill, with a distant glimpse of the strand, looking towards Bray Head is very close in date to his View of Howth (private collection) a similarly unpopulated landscape at the other extremity of Dublin Bay. It is ‘one of several coastal scenes near Dublin that O’Connor painted towards the end of the decade’ (Hutchinson, op. cit., p. 119). O’Connor had been involved in attempts to re-establish the exhibitions of the Artists of Ireland and was well represented in the 1819 show, sending seven works, including, in addition to the present painting, views on the Dargle, the Salmon Leap at Leixlip and a demesne landscape of Rockingham, County Roscommon. At the time of the exhibition, O’Connor was living at 18 Dawson Street, and in 1818 and 1819 had been working in the west of Ireland for Lord Sligo, painting views around Westport and Portumna, but shortly after this date he married and moved to England. In works such as this, O’Connor moves from a fundamentally anecdotal approach to landscape (emphasising the human presence with his ubiquitous travellers) to something rather more modern. There is a sense of dispassionate stillness – quite different from his emotionally charged romantic works – and close scrutiny, almost surveillance, of the landscape. Technically, this work shows O’Connor at his subtle and controlled best. The fall of light, the handling of massing and detail and the sense of monumentality that he manages in a small canvass combine in masterly fashion. Strickland records a sepia drawing of this subject (Vol. 2, p. 181).

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10. Frederick Buck (1765-1840) Portrait of a Gentleman in a Blue Coat Watercolour on ivory, oval, 6 x 5 With plaited hair and gold entwined initials verso Illustrated actual size

11. Frederick Buck (1765-1840) Portrait of a Gentleman in a Navy Blue Coat Watercolour on ivory, tondo 5 In rose gold frame Illustrated actual size

12. Samuel Andrews (c.1767-1807) Portrait of an Ofﬁcer in Proﬁle Watercolour and gouache, oval, 9 x 7 Signed and dated: S. Andrews, Calcutta 1803

Samuel Andrews (c. 1767-1807) Portrait of Judith Frushard Portrait of an Ofﬁcer in Proﬁle Andrews has always been described as an Irishman by birth but almost nothing is known of his background and training as an artist. In 1791 he applied to the East India Company for permission to go to Bengal. Although permission was refused he went to Madras that year. He was married there in 1795 having moved into the

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13. Samuel Andrews (c.1767-1807) Portrait of Judith Frushard Watercolour and gouache, oval, 8.5 x 7 Inscribed verso: Judith Frushard wife of Thomas Wilkinson who married Charles Russell Crommelin 1774

house previously occupied by the English miniaturist John Smart. In 1798 he moved to Calcutta. He died at Patna in 1807. Andrews painted miniatures in watercolours and en grisaille in neat pointed brushstrokes against dark backgrounds. He specialized in painting neo-classical profile miniatures which were inspired by antique Roman intaglio or cameo portraits. Andrews’ work is usually signed and dated. There are examples of his work in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Dr Paul Caffrey

14. Gustavus Hamilton (c.1739-1775) Portrait of a Gentleman in a Coat with a Blue Collar Watercolour on ivory, oval, 3.2 x 2.7 Gold bracelet and pendent setting Signed and dated: Hamn 1767 Provenance: Gorry Gallery, September 1996. Exhibited: Exhibiting Art in Georgian Ireland: The Society of Artists’ Exhibition Recreated, June-July 2018, no.28, illustrated page 135 Illustrated actual size

15. Gustavus Hamilton (c.1739-1775) Portrait of a Gentleman in a Blue Coat with a Red Collar Watercolour on ivory, oval, 3.2 x 2.7 Gold bracelet and pendent setting Signed and dated: Hamn 1767 Provenance: Gorry Gallery, September 1996. Exhibited: Exhibiting Art in Georgian Ireland: The Society of Artists’ Exhibition Recreated, June-July 2018, no.27, illustrated page 135 Illustrated actual size

Gustavus Hamilton (c. 1739-1775) Portrait of a Gentleman in a Coat with a Blue Collar Portrait of a Gentleman in a Blue Coat with a Red Collar Hamilton studied drawing at Robert West’s Academy, where he was awarded prizes in 1755 and 1756. On leaving, he worked for Samuel Dixon, colouring in his famous embossed bird pictures. His fellow apprentice, John O’Keeffe, noted in his memoirs how Dixon’s works (see cat.nos.18&19) ‘were painted by three youths of considerable merit: the eldest James Riley, Gustavus Hamilton, the son of a clergyman and my brother Daniel. They lived in Dickson’s [sic] house and had a table and everything comfortable and respectable’. Hamilton soon set up on his own producing very attractive if slightly naïve still lifes of which the present pair are dated 1757 O’Keeffe continued: ‘Hamilton was encouraged and patronised by ladies of the first rank… and made a power of money by his pencil.’ Hamilton also produced fine miniatures in which the palest areas of the sitters’ faces are left unpainted, revealing the ivory surface. By contrast, the dress and hair are treated in detail. This is achieved through the use of raised highlights in gouache mixed with gum arabic. The examples exhibited here are fine examples of what is known as the ‘modest school’, tiny portraits in gold bracelet settings which would have been painted to mark an engagement or a marriage and would have been worn on the wrist or as a locket. Dr Paul Caffrey

17. Gustavus Hamilton (c.1739-1775) Pair of Flower Pictures Bodycolour on card, 38 x 28 Signed with initials and dated February 19th 1757 verso In carved gilt wood frame

16. Gustavus Hamilton (c.1739-1775) Pair of Flower Pictures Bodycolour on card, 38 x 28 Signed with initials and dated July 18th 1757 verso In carved gilt wood frame.

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18. Samuel Dixon (fl.1748-1769) Pair of Flower and Bird Pictures Bodycolour on embossed paper, 29 x 39 In original gold, japanned frames

19. Samuel Dixon (fl.1748-1769) Pair of Flower and Bird Pictures Bodycolour on embossed paper, 29 x 39 In original gold, japanned frames

Samuel Dixon (fl.1748-1769) Pair of Flower and Bird Pictures Among the most attractive artistic productions of Georgian Ireland are the embossed flower paintings of the artist, designer, art dealer and serial entrepreneur Samuel Dixon. The son of a Dublin hosier, Dixon was established as a picture dealer and painter in Capel Street by 1748, when he advertised his stock as follows: ‘Flower pieces, drawings in Indian ink, landscapes in oil for chimneys and small ditto done on vellum in watercolour fit for ladies closets’. However it is for last item for which he is best known his sets of

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‘flower pieces in basso rilevo… which are a new invention, and are not only ornamental to Ladies chambers, but useful to paint and draw after or imitate in shell or needlework’. These embossed sets of still-lifes of birds and flowers contained in elegant ‘gold, japanned frames’ were coloured by Dixon’s apprentices James Riley, Gustavus Hamilton (see cat.nos.16&17) and Daniel O’Keeffe, and bore dedications to leading aristocratic ladies including the Countess of Kildare and the Duchess of Dorset. These charming and innovative works were much admired and quickly imitated. By 1751 Dixon was forced to issue an advertisement warning of imitations ‘being hawked around the city’. They have proved enduringly popular ever since.

20. Frederic William Burton RHA (1816-1900) Portrait of a Woman Pencil and watercolour heightened with white on Paper, oval, 31.8 x 25.7 Signed with initials and dated 1849. 2 Salim Place (Burton’s address) written on backing paper

Frederic William Burton (1816-1900) Portrait of a Woman Frederic William Burton (1816-1900) was known as an accomplished painter of portraits, landscapes and genre pictures by 1849, the year this portrait was executed. It is an oval-shaped composition of an unknown sitter wearing a black shawl. Attention is focused on the woman’s fine features, in which dark brown eyes hold the viewer’s attention with a direct unflinching gaze. A skilfully painted lace bonnet edged in white highlights provides a decorative element. Burton uses minute overlapping brushstrokes to enhance the soft colour of the face and sensitive

mouth, all of which combine to capture the sitter’s unselfish character. The work is signed and dated in monogram: ‘f.w.b. 1849’, similarly to a Portrait of Samuel Purser that was exhibited at the Burton Exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland (2017-2018). A note on paper lining the painting, ‘2 Salem Place’, refers to Burton’s address on Adelaide Road, that he used when submitting work to the Royal Hibernian Academy (rha) and Royal Academy, London in 1849. It was a busy year for the artist, who was a trustee of the rha, a member of the Royal Irish Academy Committee of Antiquities, and elected to the Council of the Royal Zoological Society. Dr Marie Bourke

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21. James Francis Danby (1816-1875) Moored Barge at Sunset Oil on canvas, 40.7 x 60.7 Signed

22. Robert Richard Scanlan (fl.1826-1876)) Coming to the Scratch Oil on Wood, 10 x 32.5 Signed and inscribed ‘Coming to the Scratch, Sobersides, Moonraker, Miss Prim, Garryowen, Dismal Jimmy’ verso With label verso: Arthur Ackermann and Son Ltd, Bond Street

Robert Richard Scanlan (fl. 1826-1876)) Coming to the Scratch Horses in their manifold roles provided a rich seam of material for the Cork painter Robert Richard Scanlan. Julian Campbell has noted his ‘fascination with horses and carts, stable yards and waggoners competing for custom (aai, Vol. 2, p. 445). As here, and in his 1840 rha exhibit: Portrait of the Famous Steeple Chaser ‘Lottery’ ridden by Mr Jason Manson the turf more specifically was his subject. The horses are identified on label on the reverse: ‘The Racehorses Sobersides, Moonraker, Miss Prim, Garry-owen and Dismal Jimmy before the start of a race run at the North Staffordshire and Newcastle-under-Lyme meeting, Aug. 1846, the race was won by Mr Ford’s brown gelding Moonraker’.

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23. Michael Angelo Hayes RHA (1820-1877) 72nd (Duke of Albany’s Own) Highlanders Watercolour heightened with white on paper, 21 x 32

24. Michael Angelo Hayes RHA (1820-1877) 78th Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs) Watercolour heightened with white on paper, 22 x 32

25. Michael Angelo Hayes RHA (1820-1877) The Cabineers Trotting Fast Watercolour heightened with white on paper, 33.7 x 48.3 Signed with monogram and dated 1840 Exhibited: Probably, Royal Hibernian Academy, 1841, no.220

Michael Angelo Hayes (1820-1877)) 72nd (Duke of Albany’s Own) Highlanders 78th Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs) The Cabineers Trotting Fast Born in Waterford, the son of Edward Hayes rha (1797-1864) who was an eminent watercolourist of portraits and miniatures. Michael Angelo Hayes was a pupil of his father and became one of Ireland’s foremost military and equestrian painters. He was appointed painter-in-ordinary to the Lord Lieutenant and exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1837 to 1876.

Detail #25

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26. George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson (1806-1884) Naval Ships off Roches Point Oil on canvas, 86.5 x 132 Signed and dated. Date possibly reads 1855

George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson (1806-1884) Naval Ships off Roches Point A large canvas, and one of George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson’s most significant works, this painting represents two frigates of the Royal Navy about to enter Cork Harbour. Signed by the artist, the painting also bears a date, barely decipherable, but appearing to be 1855. Born in Cove (later Queenstown) in 1806, of English parents, Atkinson spent some years at sea as a ship’s carpenter, before settling in his home town, where he became Inspector of Shipping and Emigrants. He lived at 3 Mervue Terrace with his family. His three sons and one daughter assisted him in his studio, and all

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later became painters. Atkinson himself was self-taught, taking up marine painting in his mid ‘thirties. He first exhibited at the inaugural Cork Art Union Exhibition in 1841, where he showed five paintings, and he continued to submit works to the Cork Art Union through the following decade. The Atkinson family maintained a tradition of producing well-crafted marine paintings and ship portraits in Cork through much of the nineteenth century. As late as 1882, Atkinson’s son Robert was painting Norwegian vessels in Cork Harbour, while his other sons George Mounsey and Richard Peterson were also marine painters in their own right. His daughter Sarah painted still lives and genre scenes. As with most of gmw Atkinson’s works, a variety of other

sailing and steam vessels appear in subsidiary roles. About a mile ahead of the frigates, a paddle steamer is visible, and further in, moored in the “roads”, just off the seafront of Great Island, are two large sailing ships, their sails furled. But the main subject in this painting is the two frigates under sail, off Roche’s Point. A fresh wind blows from the south-west, enabling the ships to move at some speed, as indicated by the white water at the bow of the second frigate, and by the slight heel of the lead vessel, which has turned north, and is entering the harbour between Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. The second frigate, brown in colour with a white band along the line of gunports, is also turning north. Both ships are three-masted and under full sail, although the topsails of the second frigate are being shortened, so as to slow down the vessel. There are three tiers of guns on the lead frigate, sixteen on the lower, fourteen on the middle, and a lesser number on the top tier. An eighty-gun frigate, this appears to be one of the “Vanguard” class, designed by Sir William Symonds, Surveyor of the Navy, and is similar to hms Superb, a ship of the “Experimental Squadron”, although the stern design is more up to date. Symonds developed his designs from one ship to the next, and so no two frigates designed by him were exactly the same. On the second, smaller, frigate, there are two tiers of gunports; fourteen on the lower tier, below decks, and nine at deck level, with two guns at the stern. This makes it a forty-eight gun warship, broadly similar in design to the frigate hms Meander, launched in 1851. Neither of the two frigates appears to have any steam power, although around this time, naval ships were being fitted with steam engines, and the age of sail was drawing to a close, save for the large grain clippers that survived into the early twentieth century. Although the Red Ensign was, and is, more usually flown by commercial shipping, this is the flag flying from the stern post of the lead frigate, along with a signal flag on the mainmast. The second frigate flies the White Ensign from the stern post, and a long

white pennant from the main mast, along with three signal flags, arranged according to one of the several systems then in use—the most popular being that devised by Popham in 1803. Atkinson’s training as a ship’s carpenter, and his personal experience of sailing ships, enabled him to portray the frigates’ rigging in great detail. The complex series of ropes and bowsprit rigging is depicted with meticulous attention to correct detail (see below). The sea is depicted as a series of rolling green waves; the sky is pale blue, with white alto-stratus clouds, while, lower over the landmass of Great Island, hovers a darker raincloud. Atkinson painted many views of Cork Harbour, and often, as in this case, used the natural contrast between sunlit and shaded areas of sea and land to enhance the composition: patches of bright water alternate with darker bands under cloud shadow, while areas of land are highlighted. All in all, this is one of Atkinson’s finest paintings, in which the grandeur of the harbour, with its headlands and islands, is counterpointed with the magnificence of ships under sail. There are paintings by George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson and his family in the Crawford Art Gallery and in the Port of Cork collection. He is also represented in Plymouth (uk) Museum, Southampton City Museums, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Mystic Seaport museum in Connecticut and the Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. In recent times, the historian Kjell Knudsen has discovered more paintings by the Atkinson family, in the Arendal museum and in other collections in Norway. Peter Murray

Detail #26

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37. John Comerford (c.1770-1832) Duke of Leinster Graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx.

28. John Comerford (c.1770-1832) John Fitzgibbon, Earl of Clare Graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx.

Historical Portraits by John Comerford (including two by James Petrie) A folio of portrait drawings by John Comerford, dating from the early 19th century and featuring leading figures in Irish politics and law; these original pencil drawings were the basis of engravings published in Sir Jonah Barrington’s “Historic Anecdotes and Secret Memoirs of the Legislative Union Between Great Britain and Ireland” (1809)

Jonah Barrington (c. 1760-1834) Born at Abbeyleix in or around 1760, Sir Jonah Barrington, politician, judge, bon viveur and prolific author, died in France in 1834. Although he attended Trinity College, Barrington left without a degree, a fact that in no way barred him from launching a successful legal and political career in Dublin. A great patriot, in the 1780s he became involved in the Irish Volunteer movement, although he proved a cautious soldier. Called to the Irish bar in 1788, the following year he married Catherine Grogan, and not long afterward entered the Irish parliament, as mp for Tuam. In 1798, as a reward

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for his support for the government, Barrington was appointed a judge in the Admiralty Court. His success continued unabated until inconsistencies and patriotism got the better of him and he voted against the Act of Union. Even this did not prevent him being awarded a knighthood in 1807. Being somewhat corrupt himself made Barrington alert to this quality in others, and his 1809 book, Historic Anecdotes and Secret Memoirs of the Legislative Union Between Great Britain and Ireland, a powerful indictment of the Act of Union, was widely read and reprinted several times. Notwithstanding his sinecures and Admiralty position, Barrington proved financially improvident. Although he increased his judge’s

38. John Comerford (c.1770-1832) Rt. Hon. William Cunningham Plunket Graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx.

45. John Comerford (c.1770-1832) Rt. Hon. General Lord Hutchinson Graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx.

income by questionable means, by 1810 he was seriously in debt and had to flee his creditors, taking his wife and children to England. From there they made their way to France, where Barrington remained for the rest of his life. His Personal Sketches, published between 1827 and 1833, is a colourful and racy account of his life and times. It was reprinted several times, under various titles, including Recollections of Jonah Barrington, The Ireland of Sir Jonah Barrington and The Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation—the last of these becoming especially popular with the Young Ireland and Fenian movements. Barrington’s Historic Anecdotes and Secret Memoirs, first published in several parts in 1809 and re-published in 1833, also sold well. However none of these could save his career. Stripped of his judgeship by a Parliamentary Commission in 1830, Barrington died just four years later, at Versailles.

by his friend George Chinnery, with whom he shared lodgings in Dame Street. Barrington saw in Comerford a skilled artist who could produce a set of standard and yet individualised portrait images of Irish politicians, lawyers and judges, to be reproduced as stipple engravings in the Memoirs. All of the drawings in the folio, save two by James Petrie, were drawn by Comerford himself. Twenty-one were based on drawings from life, but in five cases Comerford had to use paintings by other artists as his source. The pencil portrait of Lord Monteagle, for example, was based on an oil painting by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, as was that of Barrington himself. That of James, Earl of Charlemont, was based on a drawing by Horace Hone, while the portrait of Charles Kendal Bushe was based on Comerford’s own earlier miniature portrait of the Solicitor-General. The image of Henry Flood, who had died in 1791, was based on a portrait by Bartholomew Stoker. All were drawn in pencil by Comerford, and subsequently engraved by J. Heath for the Memoirs. Strickland records many Comerford portrait drawings in the collection of Thomas Spring Rice, 2nd Lord Monteagle—whose father was amongst those featured in the Memoirs. However, this Monteagle collection, or part of it, evidently passed to Robert Dillon, 5th Lord Clonbrock (1869-1926), whose family crest was pasted into the folio containing these drawings.

John Comerford (c 1770-1832) The twenty-eight drawings in the folio were prepared by the artist John Comerford (c 1770-1832) for Barrington’s Historic Anecdotes and Secret Memoirs. Born in Kilkenny, where he practised for some time as a portrait painter, by around 1802 Comerford was in Dublin, having probably been encouraged to move there

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44. James Petrie (1750-1819) Robert Emmet Graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx. Signed

Comerford portraits listed by Strickland Sir Jonah Barrington – after Hugh Douglas Hamilton John Ball, serjeant-at-law Lord Monteagle, after a portrait by Hugh Douglas Hamilton John, Lord de Blacquiere Charles Kendal Bushe; mp for Callan, Co. Kilkenny, Solicitor-General, opposed the Act of Union. Comerford based his pencil portrait on an earlier miniature he had painted of Bushe. Humphrey Butler James, Earl of Charlemont, based on a portrait by Horace Hone. John Fitzgibbon, Earl of Clare, Attorney-General and Lord Chancellor of Ireland Charles, Marquess Cornwallis John Philpot Curran, barrister, mp and defender of many United Irishmen in court. Dr. Patrick Duigenan

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34. John Comerford (c.1770-1832) James Napper Tandy Graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx.

John Egan K.C. Rt. Hon. James Fitz-Gerald Henry Flood. As Flood was deceased when Barrington’s Memoirs was being published, Comerford based his pencil drawing on a portrait by Bartholomew Stoker. Thomas Gold Sir Lawrence Parsons, 2nd Earl of Rosse. Although Comerford did paint a portrait in profile of Robert Emmet (now in the NGI), the drawing of Emmet in the folio--one of only two not by Comerford, and not mentioned in Strickland’s list of Comerford drawings—can be confidently attributed to James Petrie, who sat in court during the Emmet trial and made a number of well-documented sketches of the ill-starred revolutionary. The portrait of Major-General Montague Matthew can also be attributed to James Petrie. The collection of twenty-eight drawings in the folio includes many not listed by Strickland. By the same token, four portraits listed by Strickland are not amongst those in the folio: they are, Thomas Gold, Humphrey Butler, Lord Monteagle and John Philpot Curran.

Catalogue of Comerford portraits in the folio exhibited Gorry Gallery April 2019 An asterix * indicates the portraits in the folio are listed in Strickland: those without an asterix are not so listed. All are drawn by John Comerford, apart from two by James Petrie. All: graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx. 27. Sir Jonah Barrington* after a portrait by Hugh Douglas Hamilton (Historic Memoirs, frontispiece) Oval 28. John Fitzgibbon, Earl of Clare* (Vol. I Historic Memoirs, p. 18) Attorney-General and Lord Chancellor of Ireland 29. Lawrence Parsons, 2nd Earl of Rosse* (Vol II Historic Memoirs, p. 306) mp for Dublin University 1782-1790, then MP for King’s County until 1807. Postmaster General of Ireland, in 1814 Parsons attended the laying of the foundation stone of the gpo, by the Lord Lieutenant Charles Whitworth.

49. John Comerford (c.1770-1832) Francis Rawdon, Earl of Moira Graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx.

30. James, Earl of Charlemont* (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 158) Based on a drawing by Horace Hone. 31. Rt. Hon John, Lord de Blacquiere* (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 216) 32. Charles Cornwallis, Marquis Cornwallis, Lord Lieutenant* (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 282) 33. Mr. John Ball, Sergeant-at-Law* (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 294) 34. James Napper Tandy (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 184) 35. The Earl of Granard (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 322) 36. Francis Hardy Esq (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 162)

35. John Comerford (c.1770-1832) The Earl of Granard Graphite on paper, 17 x 14 approx.

40. Rt. Hon. Hussey Burgh (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 36)

49. Francis Rawdon, Earl of Moira (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 336)

41. Rev. Dr. Marlay, Bishop of Waterford (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 321) Oval

50. John Egan Esq KC* (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 310)

42. Col. Charles Vereker (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 280) 43. Richard Dawson Esq., mp (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 166) 44. Robert Emmet by James Petrie (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 65) 45. Rt. Hon General Lord Hutchinson (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 278) 46. Mr. Secretary Cooke (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 300)

38. Rt. Hon William Cunningham Plunket (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 350)

47. Rt. Hon Henry Flood* (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 106) Henry Flood. As Flood was deceased when Barringtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Memoirs was being published, Comerford based his pencil drawing on a portrait by Bartholomew Stoker.

39. Arthur Wolfe, Viscount Kilwarden (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 65)

48. Dr. Patrick Duigenan lld* (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 90)

37. The Duke of Leinster (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 180)

51. Rt. Hon James Fitz-Gerald* (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 290) 52. Major-General Montague Matthew (Vol i, Historic Memoirs, p. 336) On stylistic grounds, this can be attributed to James Petrie 53. Charles Kendal Bushe* (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 344) mp for Callan, Co. Kilkenny, Solicitor-General, opposed the Act of Union. Comerford based his pencil portrait on an earlier miniature he had painted of Bushe. 54. Sir John Maccartney (Vol ii, Historic Memoirs, p. 373)

Peter Murray, April 2019

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55. Walter Frederick Osborne RHA (1859-1903) The Parrot House Oil on canvas laid down on board, 27.8 x 19 Supplied by J.D. Spence, Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Colourman, 7, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin (trade stamp verso) Inscribed verso: Mr Noel Guinness Provenance: Noel Guinness Esq., Dublin, by descent

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Walter Frederick Osborne RHA (1859-1903) The Parrot House Throughout his career, Walter Osborne was an avid oil sketcher, responding with speed and accuracy to the things around him. His student years had taught him the value of this activity as a basis for more finished figure compositions and portraits, but the practice was also an end-in-itself – providing a visual diary in which the thing seen, and the mark made to record it, were completely in tune. As with any diary, the handwriting changes over time and while early oil sketches would employ opaque paint and squareshaped brushes, those of the mid- to late 1890s are more fluid and make use of diluted pigment enlivened by striking colour notes. These later works are often considered ‘impressionistic’. This is not to imply that Osborne adopted a series of recognized stylistic traits. He was no Monet imitator. Indeed, sketches such as The Parrot House were prized precisely for what might be regarded as ‘signature qualities’ – the very things that make an ‘Osborne’, unmistakably ‘Osborne’. Here we see space and form uniquely conveyed within the restricted circumstances of an indoor aviary. Osborne’s setting in which two visitors inspect tropical birds remains unidentified and is the subject of on-going research. While Dublin Zoo remains a possibility, it is also the case that in the late nineteenth century many public parks had their own small aviaries. The rather informal greenhouse with a domestic cage in the foreground suggests that this may be the case, while the fact that the woman with the umbrella is dressed in outdoor clothes tends to rule out a private garden bird house. Passed down in the Guinness family from Noel Guinness, it seems not improbable that the present work was a gift to the patron’s wife or daughter, marking the occasion when their double portrait was painted. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1898, Mrs Noel Guinness and her daughter, Margaret, (Guinness Collection) was one of the painter’s most successful works – ‘cleverly executed in an agreeable scheme of colour’, according to the Morning Post (12 May 1898, p. 4). So ‘agreeable’ indeed was the picture that it was re-exhibited in the Royal Hibernian Academy the following year and awarded a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. Scions of Dublin society, the Guinnesses were frequently cited in the social pages of the local press, Noel Guinness having received a substantial fortune on the death of his father Henry in 1894. While further research may clarify these issues as well as the source of Osborne’s subject matter, one aspect of the work can be expanded. Although bird houses seldom feature in the art of his contemporaries, one salient, and much-admired example, which he would have seen at the New English Art Club in 1890, should be

mentioned. This is Joseph Crawhall’s The Aviary, Clifton (fig 1). Differences are as important as similarities in the comparison, and while the Northumbrian painter provides a portrait of a white parakeet, his Irish contemporary concentrates on the ambiance. In Crawhall’s Bristol aviary the specimens are arrayed on their perches awaiting examination, while in Osborne’s bird house we peer beyond them to the visitors – a boy in a brown suit, and a young woman wearing a boater. She has her back to us, looking intently at something that may be happening beyond the glass, and from her fingers, she dangles a vermilion parasol. Presently, both will move on, but in this remarkable moment, a few strokes from a brilliant brush are all it takes to pin them down. Professor Kenneth McConkey

Fig 1 Joseph Crawhall RWS, NEAC (1861-1913) The Aviary, Clifton, 1888 Watercolour, 51 x 35 Burrell Collection, Glasgow

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56. Dermod O’Brien PRHA (1865-1945) South of France Oil on Canvas laid down on board, 15.7 x 24 Inscribed verso: Dermod O’Brien PRHA (my grandfather) oil sketch – south of France painted circa 1920. Antony O’Brien

57. Dermod O’Brien PRHA (1865-1945) Luggala Oil on Canvas, 25.5 x 35.5 Signed. Also inscribed verso in the artist’s hand: Luggala, County Dublin, £7,7,0

Dermod O’Brien PRHA (1865-1945) South of France Luggala Autumn Studies Dermod O’Brien was a landscape and portrait painter. He trained at first in the Antwerp Academy before travelling to the Slade School of Fine Art in London. In 1901 he moved back to Ireland to build a successful career as an artist and was subsequently elected President of the Royal Hibernian Academy (rha) from 1910, a position he held until his death in 1945.

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58. Dermod O’Brien PRHA (1865-1945) Autumn Studies, Cahirmoyle, County Limerick Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 38 With inscription by Brendan O’Brien, the artist’s son verso

All three of O’Brien’s landscapes featured in this exhibition would likely have been painted en plein air. O’Brien has captured Luggala, on a bright, fresh day, with large, billowing clouds moving steadily across the sky. Similarly, in the painting entitled South of France, O’Brien’s depiction of a clear day brings a sense of warmth to the image. In 1908 O’Brien moved back to his beloved family estate; Cahirmoyle, County Limerick. Autumn Studies depicts a flat, pastural landscape and is a view from this area. O’Brien’s success as a painter may have been overshadowed by his success as President of the rha, however, these examples of his landscapes display his technical ability and confidence in the medium of paint.

Moyra A. Barry (1885-1960) Flower Piece Dublin born flower and landscape painter. Studied Royal Hibernian Academy (rha) schools 1908-9 and Slade School of Fine Art, London, 1911-14. Regular exhibitor at the rha, 1908-52, and also the Dublin Sketching Club, Watercolour Society of Ireland, Dublin Painters and the Oireachtas. A retrospective exhibition of her work was held in this gallery in 1982 where her self-portrait was purchased by the National Gallery of Ireland.

59. Moyra A. Barry (1885-1960) Flower Piece Oil on canvas, 46 x 35.5 Signed

Simon Colemon RHA (1916-1995) Ploughing

60. Simon Coleman RHA (1916-1995) Ploughing Oil on canvas, 41 x 51 Signed and dated ‘46

Landscape and portrait painter. Born Duleek, Co. Meath. Studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art from 1933 and commenced exhibiting at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1940, contributing some two hundred works until 1979. Works by him are in many public collections including; Armagh County Museum; Ulster Museum; Hugh Lane Gallery; Limerick City Gallery; National Self-Portrait Collection and Áras an Uachtaráin.

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61. Aloysius O’Kelly (1853-1936) Cairene Gossips Oil on canvas, 36 x 25 Signed. With original label verso Exhibited: Royal Academy 1889, no.807

Aloysius O’Kelly (1853-1936) Cairene Gossips Mohammedan Women in Charge of a Servant Following his sojourn in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the mid 1870s, O’Kelly returned to Ireland to document the escalating political situation in Ireland during the Land War. He then went to Sudan, to follow the recent Mahdi rising, and from there to Cairo. There were few tourists in Cairo when O’Kelly first went there in 1884. As Elizabeth Butler noted, Cairo was not yet mutilated by Occidentalism – ‘the oriental cachet was dominant still.’ As a painter of the city, O’Kelly’s topographical competence is undeniable: the red and white coursed minarets, the narrow streets, the overhanging windows, the deep shadows and bright sunlight all attest to his skills as an observing urban portraitist. The heavily shrouded women in the bustling Cairene street show their gaily coloured dresses beneath their Niqab, their street apparel. They are out shopping, accompanied by their donkey boy, for protection and conveyance. In Cairo at this time, it was estimated there were over seven thousand camel and donkey boys.

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62. Aloysius O’Kelly (1853-1936) Mohammedan Women in Charge of a Servant Oil on canvas, 35 x 24 Signed. With original label verso Exhibited: Royal Academy 1889, no.822

O’Kelly did several versions of Cairene Gossips. Although other artists stigmatized the orient, O’Kelly presents a more nuanced view of the miasmic city. Cairo in the mid 1880s was a source of great anxiety to the colonial authority. The mashrabiyya (overhanging windows) are typical of a city where the narrowness of the streets kept the inhabitants cool in the hot climate. But the political ramifications of densely packed population in a confined area–in a city newly occupied by foreign powers, and following the recent repression of the nationalist movement – led to massive social problems. The irregularity, disorder and narrowness of the streets – expressed by artists using architectural decay as a metaphor for social dissolution – were considered a principal cause not only of physical disease but also of crime and sedition. Decaying architecture – architecture moralise– is also read as a metaphor for the corruption of contemporary Islamic society. While O’Kelly also painted in the Orientalist style, à la Gérôme, he was more concerned with modern, urban Cairo – as it was rather than as its colonial masters thought it should be. Professor Emerita Niamh O’Sullivan

Alicia Boyle RBA (1908-1997) Design for ‘The Journey’ a Mural Decoration for a Library, 1939 Landscape, figure and mural painter. Her family were from Limavady, Co. Derry. She studied in London at the Byam Shaw School of Art, winning two scholarships and undertook many commissions for mural decorations. She painted in both oil and watercolour and exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the New English Art Club, the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, the Leger Galleries, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Taylor Galleries, to name but a few. 63. Alicia Boyle RBA (1908-1997) Design for ‘The Journey’ a Mural Decoration for a Library, 1939 Watercolour on paper, 19.6 x 30.8 Signed, dated 1939 and extensively inscribed verso: The Journey 5’ x 8’ design for Library overmantel between bookshelves, in process of execution in distemper on gesso panel Exhibited: Arts Council of Northern Ireland, cat.no.87, original label verso

64. Cormac O’Connor (c.1928-1998) In the Castle Grounds Watercolour on paper, 24 x 26.5

65. Robert S. Shore RHA (1868-1931) The Water Way Oil on Board, 20.8 x 30.8 Signed Inscribed verso: The Water Way

Cormac O’Connor (c.1928-1998) In the Castle Grounds

Robert S. Shore RHA (1868-1931) The Water Way

Limerick landscape painter. Frequent exhibitor at the Oireachtas Art Exhibition and the Watercolour Society of Ireland from 1944 until 1968 and at the Royal Hibernian Academy 1959 and 1963.

Dublin marine painter. Studied at the Metropolitan School of Art and commenced exhibiting at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1890 until 1922. He was also a frequent exhibitor at the Dublin Sketching Club from 1891 until 1905, and at the Royal Academy, London in 1896 and 1897.

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66. Harry Jones Thaddeus RHA (1860-1929) Portrait of the Artist’s Son, Freddy Thaddeus (b. 1894) with the Family Dog, Ra Oil on canvas, 91.5 x 71.2 Provenance: Presented by the artist to a neighbouring family, c. 1907; By descent until 1999 when purchased by Patrick Thaddeus, nephew of the sitter and grandson of the artist; Private Collection, United States Literature: Brendan Rooney, The Life and Work of Harry Jones Thaddeus, 1859-1929 (Dublin, 2003) p. 277, no. 194, and colour plate 37

Harry Jones Thaddeus (1860-1929) Portrait of the Artist’s Son, Freddy Thaddeus (b. 1894) with the Family Dog, Ra One of the technical devices that late nineteenth century society portrait painters learnt from the art of Thomas Gainsborough (so avidly collected by their patrons) was a daring approach to finish. Instead of treating each part of the canvas in the same fashion, different areas of the painting would be brought to differing degrees of completion. Gainsborough’s faces were often worked up to a high degree polish, but drapery and extraneous detail could be so summarily sketched that his work was often criticised by contemporaries for being unfinished. Adapting this non-finito aesthetic (itself ultimately derived from Rembrandt’s practice and further influenced by the brushwork of contemporary impressionist artists) resulted in bravura performances by painters such as Giovanni Boldini, John Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn and is reflected in this sensitive portrait of his eldest son Frederick Francis (Freddie) and the family dog, a collie called Ra, painted by Thaddeus when the family was living at Maesmawr Hall in Wales. Freddie was born in Cairo, where Thaddeus had been appointed Court Painter to the Khedive, and the dog was named after the Egyptian god of the sun. The work is particularly comparable to Zorn’s slightly earlier, Mrs

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Walter Rathbone Bacon (Metropolitan Museum, New York), in which a similarly sketchily rendered collie again acts as a dynamic foil to the human subject of the portrait. The picture hung for many years in Maesmawr Hall, Caersws, which had been owned the Davies family since the mid-seventeenth century. When the heir to the estate was ordained to the Anglican priesthood in 1900 and began the busy life of a curate in the Midlands, he chose to lease the property to tenants. Among these was Thaddeus, who rented the house from the end of 1903 to early 1907. In 1920, when Maesmawr Hall and its contents were sold, the portrait of Freddie and Ra, which Thaddeus had left – perhaps in lieu of rent, or simply because it was too cumbersome to transport to the United States – was bought by a family who lived in nearby Glanhafren. It descended through that family until it was sold, in 1999, to Patrick Thaddeus, nephew of the sitter and grandson of the artist. Thaddeus evidently had a longstanding affection for collies. According to his other son Victor, he died with ‘a bottle of port and a half empty glass beside him, and at his feet, like a kindly touch of Nature to assure the first person who entered the room that death was just another part of the scheme of things, his favourite Irish collie lying asleep’ (Letter to Henry L. Mencken, 30 March 1943, New York Public Library).

Gearóid Arthur Hayes (b. 1980) Self Portrait Gearóid Arthur Hayes is an award-winning artist, painting instructor and art-historian. Born Limerick 1980, he attended Clongowes Wood College before reading Law and Business at University College Dublin. Intent on becoming an artist he travelled to Florence in 2003, first studying at the Accademia before gaining admittance to the atelier of Charles H Cecil where he was classically trained in painting and sculpture. After his tenure he settled in Dublin in the autumn of 2008 and began a portrait painting practice. In 2016 he completed a Diploma in European Painting (tcd) and in 2018 completed the Masters in Art and Ireland (tcd). The principal focus of his research is the work of Walter Frederick Osborne (1859-1903) and he is currently gathering material for a PhD on same. He has recently given lectures at the National Gallery of Ireland and the Royal Dublin Society.

67. Gearóid Arthur Hayes (b.1980) Self-Portrait Sketch Oil on wood, 40 x 30

68. J.B.S. MacIlwaine RHA (1857-1945) Souvenier of Annaghroe Oil on canvas, 61 x 91.1 Signed with monogram and dated 1928 Exhibited: Probably Royal Hibernian Academy, 1936, no.115

JBS MacIlwaine RHA (1857-1945) Souvenier of Annaghroe MacIlwaine was a Dublin born landscape painter. He trained at the Royal Hibernian Academy, where he met his close friend Walter Osborne, whose painting of MacIlwaine hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland. Examples of MacIlwaine’s work can be found at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and the National Gallery.

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Index of Artists Page no.

cat.no.

Andrews, Samuel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 12,13 Atkinson, George Mounsey Wheatley. . . . . . . . . . . 14-15 26 Barry, Moyra A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 59 Boyle, Alicia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 63 Buck, Frederick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 10, 11 Burton, Frederic William . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 20 Campbell, John Henry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 6,7 Coleman, Simon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 60 Comerford, John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-19 27-54 Danby, James Francis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 21 Dixon, Samuel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 18,19 Hamilton, Gustavus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 14-17 Hayes, Gearóid Arthur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 67 Hayes, Michael Angelo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 23-25 MacIlwaine, J.B.S.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 68 Nairn, Cecilia Margaret . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 8 O’Brien, Dermod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 56-58 O’Connor, Cormac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 64 O’Connor, James Arthur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 9 O’Kelly, Aloysius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 61, 62 O’Reilly, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-3 1 Osborne, Walter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20-21 55 Petrie, James. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-19 44, 52 Sadler II, William . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-5 2, 3, 5 Sadler III, William. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4 Scanlan, Robert Richard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 22 Shore, Robert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 65 Thaddeus, Harry Jones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 66 28

gorry gallery

Acknowledgements We are grateful to the following for their kind assistance in the preparation of this exhibition: Christopher Ashe, Hannah Baker, Dr Marie Bourke, Gillian Buckley, Dr Paul Caffrey, Dr Julian Campbell, Mary Davies, William Laffan, Pat McBride, Professor Kenneth McConkey, Susan Mulhall, Peter Murray, Professor Emerita Niamh Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Sullivan, Colin Rafferty, Dr Brendan Rooney.

gorry gallery

gorry gallery 20 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2 +353 (0)1 679 5319 www.gorrygallery.ie gallery opening times Monday–Friday 11.30am–5.30pm, and Saturday (during exhibitions only) 11.30am–2.30pm Catalogue design by Ros Woodham ros@alkabir.org Printing by Print Run Ltd