Gorry Gallery Exhibition November 2016

GORRY GALLERY

THIS EXHIBITION IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THÉRÈSE GORRY 1949-2016

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

An Exhibition of 18th - 21st Century Irish Paintings On Sunday, 27th November, 2016 Wine 3.00 p.m.

This exhibition can be viewed prior to the opening by appointment also on Friday and Saturday 25th and 26th November from 11.30 a.m. - 5.30 p.m.

www.gorrygallery.ie

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

27th November - 10th December 2016 FRONT COVER: Sir Thomas Alfred Jones P.R.H.A. c.1823-1893 Catalogue Number: 1 Š Gorry Gallery

1. Sir Thomas Alfred Jones, P.R.H.A. c.1823-1893 ‘Connemara Girls’ Oil on canvas 142.3 x 112

Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy, 1880, no. 123, £105-0-0 Perhaps the masterpiece of the ‘Irish Colleen genre’, this large painting by the President of the Royal Hibernian Academy, Thomas Alfred Jones elevates to a monumental scale the subject matter of his famous, and much reproduced, Molly Macree (National Gallery of Ireland).

It relates to similar subjects which, superficially, can be seen to celebrate the good looks of young Irish girls – always of a very specific physiognomy – such as the Colleen’s Toilet exhibited at the RHA in 1864 and A Galway Girl which depicts a young woman in similar Irish tartan (private collection, illustrated Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, Ireland’s Painters, 2002, p. 237).

poetry of James Lyman Molloy), MacCurtain writes that Jones gave this ‘genre a place in Irish art’. She carries on that Jones is ‘a more complicated artist than he appears’, and relates Molly Macree to the trauma of the Famine:

Julian Campbell has singled out these pictures, ‘of west of Ireland women, with gentle, oval faces, shining hair and lustrous eyes, and exquisitely decorated shawls’, as best reflecting Jones’s talent (AAI, Vol. 2, p. 327). In addition, however, to their ostensibly picturesque subject matter, many of these works carry a coded political resonance.

As Campbell notes: Jones’s ‘paintings of emigrants… indicate a sympathy for less privileged members of society’. Although he later rose to the presidency of the RHA and was given a knighthood, Jones had been abandoned as a baby and was given his name by his adoptive parents after Henry Fielding’s novel Tom Jones. Here, the depiction of three barefoot young girls set in the mountains of Connemara – which saw some of the worst tragedies of the Famine, with one carrying a basket of bread – Trevelyan’s corn – cannot be innocent of political charge. Indeed Margaret MacCurtain writing of paintings of this category by Jones (and noting that issues of ‘class and gender are quite overt’ in such works), has specifically called for a study of the ‘ideological in the Irish Colleen genre of that period’.

Many of the same resonances – the poignant contrast between youthful healthy beauty and the emaciation of the victims of the Famine that had stalked these same hills – a Death and the Maiden theme – cling to Connemara Girls. Also supporting a political reading here – as in Burke’s Connemara Girl – is the longstanding association of Ireland with a young girl, of Cathleen ní Houlihann, though the trio here also partake of the iconography of The Fates.

Their sisters – transposed to a minor key – can be found in the similarly dressed group of girls in Daniel Macdonald’s Fairy Blast or Sídhe Gaoithe, which, as Niamh O’Sullivan suggestively intuits, is a ‘harbinger of horror ahead’ (Niamh O’Sullivan, in the Lion’s Den, Daniel Macdonald, Ireland and Empire, 2016, p. 40). Jones clearly thought of Connemara Girls as his magnum opus, as is clear from its almost altarpiece scale and the price of £105 which he placed on it when he sent it for exhibition at the RHA in 1880. This was the highest price that Jones ever asked at the Academy, and indeed was a multiple of his average asking price. The picture was admired at the exhibition that year: ‘a lovely ideal picture of three arch-looking colleens on a country road’ wrote the Freeman’s Journal (9 Feb 1880), but has languished unrecognised until correctly identified for this exhibition. (In general see Margaret MacCurtain, ‘The Real Molly Macree’ in Adele M. Dalsimer and Nancy Netzer, Visualizing Ireland, National Identity and the Pictorial Tradition, 1993, pp 9-21).

The title echoes that of A Connemara Girl by Augustus Burke (NGI, 1865), but also Jones’s own Limerick Lasses (Royal Academy, London 1875). Linking compositions such as this to continental precedents in the art of JeanFrançois Millet and Jules Breton (but also to the lyric Page 2 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

‘On one level, Jones treats her allegorically, and the longer one looks at the painting, the more obvious becomes its political statement. As a composition, it is disconcertingly direct, but its iconography expresses what is unrepresentable, disturbing – truths that lurks below the surface of this text of an Irish peasant girl in the years after the Great Famine.’

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

2. George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson 1806-1884 ‘A Sailing Ship off Anglesea, bound for Liverpool, with South Stack lighthouse in distance’ Oil on canvas 61 x 89 Signed and dated 1851

In this spirited marine painting, Atkinson depicts a three-masted barque racing before the wind, passing the coast of Holyhead in Wales, en route to Liverpool. The ship’s topsails have been struck, to ease the pressure on the masts, while one of the foresails flies loose. The flag on the mainmast, with its red and white disc, represents a shipping company, as yet unidentified, (the design is similar to the present-day flag of Greenland). From the ship’s mizen mast flies a red ensign. The ship’s figurehead is a white bird, but the name of the vessel is not known. In the distance is the South Stack lighthouse, built in the early nineteenth century. Atkinson has taken some liberties in this painting: in the background another barque, sailing in the opposite direction, seems also to be running before the wind, while on the ship in the foreground, the flags are shown flying in a direction that does not correspond to the direction of the wind filling the sails.

Such niceties apart, the painting is one of Atkinson’s finest paintings, with sea, clouds and sky rendered with the artist’s characteristic eye for observed detail. In its acute observation of sky and cloud formations, and also in the accurate rendering of ships and their rigging, Atkinson’s painting can be compared with the work of American painters Francis Silva and Fitz Hugh Lane. Their high reputations highlight the comparative neglect of this prolific Cork artist, whose omission from standard reference works on maritime painting is inexcusable. However over the years, the Gorry Gallery has brought to light a number of works by Atkinson, reinstating him as an artist of note, while his painting The Visit of Queen Victoria to Cork in 1849 is a highlight of the current exhibition on history painting at the National Gallery of Ireland. There are paintings

by Atkinson in the Crawford Art Gallery, and also in the collection of the Port of Cork. He is also represented in the National Maritime Museum in the UK, The Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut and the Peabody Museum in Massachusetts.

Peter Murray An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 3

3. Irish School c.1840

‘The Connemara Spinner’ Oil on canvas 63.5 x 76 This detailed Irish interior is clearly the kitchen of a ‘strong farmer’, showing an unusually wide range of traditional furniture and paraphernalia. The way such things varied distinctly by region, helps determine the painting’s location, which broadly suggests Connemara.

Most of the farmer’s work was out of doors, while the kitchen was primarily the woman’s workplace. Here he is appropriately relaxing at the centre of things; lighting his pipe with a glowing turf ember, taken from the well fuelled floor level fire, held in a pair of tongs. Like the earlier Dutch genre paintings, viewers were invited to ‘read’ the narrative spelt out with familiar objects placed symbolically. Our farmer is comfortably dressed in his high necked shirt, red waistcoat and short blue coat with close sleeves and turned down or fall collar. His buttoned knee breeches, hand-knit stockings and laced brogues were practical and fashionable in the early nineteenth century. His top hat is placed on a ladder, leading up to an amply stocked half loft. Above his head hangs a horse Page 4 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

shoe for good luck (in the typical Irish way, like a small letter ‘n’). An extra pair of shoes also hangs close by, at a time when many rural folk went without, indicating comparative wealth. The only barefoot child, reads by tracing the words of a book with a stick. Fig 1. This and the ink bottle and quill hanging safely above the hearth, allow the artist to tell us they are also educated.

The farmer’s wife reaches into one of two cast iron cooking pots. She is probably crouching low on a small ‘creepie stool’, like one nearby, bearing a wooden bowl of cabbage.

Her ample cooking paraphernalia includes the coopermade metal hooped tub that answered many purposes (and was often a wash tub), but here appears full of soup or stew. The tinsmith made the black handled can with its rolled top and closely fitting lid close by, to carry water from the well. He also made numerous smaller items such as the shiny teapot on the dresser, which imitates the oval shape of more expensive ceramic ones. There’s no shortage of food here, and the circular basket in the An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

foreground is a more fancy type than the common flatbottomed skib or ciseog, through which the boiled potatoes were strained and then eaten directly from.

This one, with its ‘3 pair border’ appears to be of natural (unpeeled) willow.

It would be rested on the cooking pot, or on a stool, in lieu of a table. Salt herring (hanging on the hearth wall) or salt (from the slopelidded salt box further left), or buttermilk in a noggin, was placed centrally to flavour or ’kitchen’ the potatoes. Enough would be boiled to feed any hens and the pig. This artist’s Fig 1. vignette showing the pig’s enthusiasm for raw potatoes, reflects his importance as he was indeed often kept indoors. In her book of 1842 Mrs S.C. Hall predicts the decline of the regionally distinct ‘original Connaught pig’, as nearly extinct. It was ‘long, tall, and usually spare’ with ‘a singularly sharp physiognomy’ which she illustrated and predicted that ‘in a few years, will be found only in pictures’.

The wide-eyed young woman who sits to spin, may be a servant, a maiden aunt or a daughter. The fact that women’s incomes from such home industries often exceeded the men’s from farming, may help explain her prominence within the composition. The type of treadle wheel so skilfully delineated was introduced by the government, predominantly into northern counties, to improve how flax was spun into thread for linen.

Sophisticated compared to the walking wheel usually used for wool, this ‘low Irish or Dutch wheel’ was powered by a foot treadle. This freed both the spinner’s hands to feed a really fine, even thread onto the moving spindle (to the left of her left hand). Raised aloft the distaff holds the laboriously prepared flax cleanly within reach, so she can tease out each thread, to spin it. Mrs Hall illustrates the various wheels, noting the decline of their use, due to the rise of the large flax mills. Unlike the farmer’s wife, the girl is bareheaded, which tells us she is unmarried. She sits on a regionally distinctive chair, known sometimes as the Sligo chair because according to Mrs Hall this ‘singularly primitive chair [was] very commonly used throughout Connaught’. Its unique medieval construction, involving a ‘through tusked tenon’ is clearly revealed here, behind the seat. Its typical narrow plank back was ideal, because armrests would otherwise restrict the spinner’s arm movements. Such a sturdy chair with three rather than four legs, stands firmly on this uneven flagged floor, and An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

the farmer sits on one too.

The women’s petticoats dyed red with madder, also suggest the artist was working in a westerly location.

Beneath the spinner’s chair, symbolic of abundance, a fat cat is rewarded for his job as rat catcher, with a piece of fish.

The construction of the dresser is faithfully delineated. It being made in one piece rather than two, places it firmly within Ireland. The large top shelf accommodates the special meat platters, of blue and white willow pattern.

Patterned jugs and mugs hang from nails along the shelf fronts. The raised base (favoured until the later nineteenth century) housed heavy buckets of well water or milk from the cow, at floor level. Above are woodenhooped coopered vessels; a large noggin for eating or drinking out of, the taller piggin tapering inwards towards the top for carrying, and a huge jug. Three more of these coarse earthenware vessels with their vividly gleaming black glaze over red clay, are like a type shipped in vast quantities through Dublin, called ‘Buckley ware’ (from south Lancashire). The artist’s handling of all these contrasting surfaces and materials, as well as the people’s hands as they work, is especially accomplished.

Tucked into a hooded cradle of stripped or white willow, a baby sleeps in the background. Nearby is a creel for carrying turf and a slane, for digging it from the bog.

More professionally made, elaborate baskets, are up on the loft. Atop the dresser the openwork fitched basket suggests a birdcage. Baskets are favoured by woodworm, so some only survive in such paintings. A sweeping besom, maybe of heather, with its characteristically bound integral handle, leans across the right hand corner. This artist’s symbolic message suggests that a warm house with a well fed family, is the reward of hard work and frugality. Like its Dutch predecessors, symbols found within the repertoire of the traditional farm kitchen were used to tell the tale.

Dr. Claudia Kinmonth M.A.( R.C.A.) and with thanks to Joe Hogan References: Joe Hogan, Basketmaking in Ireland (Wordwell, 2001).

C. Kinmonth, Irish Country Furniture 1700-1950 (Yale University Press, 1993), p.51-53.

C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006).

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 5

4. James Arthur O’Connor c.1792-1841

‘Figures and a Donkey in a Wooded Village Lane’ Oil on canvas 61 x 46 Signed

Provenance: The Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art and British Studies, Newhaven, Connecticut Accession no., B1973.1.43 (label verso) The Taylor Gallery, London (label verso)

A particularly accomplished work by O’Connor, Cat No. 4 shows a lovingly painted village scene with a mill or other utilitarian building to the left. In many ways it can be seen as a homage to O’Connor’s friend Francis Danby with whom O’Connor travelled to England in 1813, and it is particularly comparable in its pastoral mood, bright palette and almost enamel-like finishing with some of Danby’s work done in the Bristol area in the early 1820s. Specifically it seems that O’Connor was aware of Danby’s A Street in Tintern (private collection) Fig. 1. However, O’Connor makes the picture distinctly his own and there are also telling similarities in the structuring of the composition around the path disappearing into the distance, the subtly handled perspective emphasized by receding trees and also in the play of light and shadows with The Avenue, A View in the Parc de Bruxelles (private collection, formerly Gorry Gallery). However, 1835 the date of The Avenue seems rather too late for the present work. This painting formed part of the greatest collection of English and Irish paintings ever assembled, that of the late Paul Mellon.

Page 6 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

Fig 1.

Francis Danby 1793-1861 ‘A Street in Tintern’ c.1820 Private collection

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

5. James Arthur O’Connor c.1792-1841

‘View near Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow’ Oil on board 16.7 x 25.3 Signed with initials, also signed and inscribed with title verso Wicklow and in particular the Dargle Valley provide O’Connor with the subject matter for many of his finest works such a View of the Devil’s Glen (National Gallery of Ireland). Even when he was living in England, he needed return visits to Ireland to renew his inspiration writing: “I am about going to the wild and beautiful scenery of my native country to refresh my memory, and get some studies to help me in future exertion in my profession – I know that I will be benefited by a sight of the grand . . . scenery that I will meet with in Ireland and hope it will show it on canvas’. This view near Enniskerry Cat. No. 5 is a wonderfully fresh example with a beautifully blue sky – the very definition of cerulean.

Counwty Wicklow may also be the setting for a fine upright landscape (Cat. No. 6) which shows a variety of figures on a path receding into the distance. Closest to the viewer is a seated male, a couple are shown in the middle distance while a single man is the furthermost human presence. The sense of perspectival recession is greatly enhanced by the burst of bright sunlight into which he strides. This very much goes to show how, in addition to his direct observation of nature on visits back to Ireland – and indeed the continent – O’Connor had clearly learned the lessons of Dutch seventeenth-century painters such as Hobbema in his subtle handing of the different structural planes within the picture.

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

6. James Arthur O’Connor c.1792-1841 ‘Wooded Landscape with Figures on a Path’ Oil on canvas 40 x 34 Signed

Provenance: Gorry Gallery, Exhibition 1991, Cat. No. 3 Private Collection November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 7

7. James Malton 1765-1803

‘The Commercial Buildings, Dame Street, Dublin’ Ink and watercolour on paper 36.5 x 51.5

Provenance: John Chambers, Dublin (by whom an image of this watercolour placed with The Irish Architectural Archive) Private Collection, USA A fine but austere seven-bay three-storey building.

Sited on the old Fownes Court, there was a pedestrian shortcut through the building and courtyard to Cope Street. In 1805, it became a meeting place for the Ouzel Galley Society which dealt with ship insurance and arbitration, and later became a part of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. Demolished to make way for Stephenson’s Central Bank, seemingly the stonework was dismantled and numbered, however a facsimile was erected nearby.

Described in 1837 by Lewis, “The Commercial Buildings form a plain but substantial square of three stories, constituting the sides of a small quadrangle and wholly unornamented except in the principal front to Collegegreen, which is of hewn stone and has a central entrance supported by Ionic columns.

On the left of the grand entrance-hall and staircase is a news-room, 60 feet long and 28 feet wide, occupied by the members of the Chamber of Commerce (established in 1820 to protect and improve the commerce of the city); Page 8 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

and on the right is a handsome coffee-room, connected with that part of the building which is used as an hotel.

The north side of the quadrangle is occupied by the Stock Exchange and merchants’ offices, and on the east and west are offices for the brokers. It was built by a proprietary of 400 £50 shareholders, and was completed in 1799, under the superintendence of Mr. Parkes.”

James Malton has done more than any artist to shape our vision of Georgian Dublin through his skillful and atmospheric large watercolours such as this and also through the aquatints of his 1799 publication A Picturesque and Descriptive View of the City of Dublin which included twenty-five images many of which are now very well known. Born in London he trained with James Gandon with whom he later fell out rather spectacularly.

In his watercolours, Malton is topographically and architecturally very accurate, and the value of this drawing is all the greater as it provides such a good description of a prominent Dublin landmark that was rather unceremoniously removed. Malton shot himself in London in July 1803.

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

8. James Heath Millington 1799-1872

‘Portrait Of A Gentleman’ Watercolour and gouache on ivory 6.8 x 5.5 Framed in a glazed gold locket case Signed and dated: JHM 1819 Card on the reverse: R & J Giou Goldsmith and Jeweller No. 76 Berwick Street, Oxford Street (Illustrated actual size)

This miniature by the Irish-born miniaturist James Heath Millington is a version of an earlier portrait that would have been painted during the late-1780s. It is painted in the elegant style of Richard Cosway RA (1742-1821). This may be seen in the use of a sky-blue background, muted colours and in the details of the sitter’s powdered hair. The portrait is probably of a member of the fashionable world that revolved around Frederick, Prince of Wales.

Millington was born in Cork but was brought up in England. He returned to work in Ireland in 1821 where he painted mythological subject pictures, oil portraits, miniatures in watercolours on ivory and silhouettes. He lived for a short time in Cork and then moved to Dublin. Millington exhibited his work at the Artists of Ireland exhibition (Dublin 1821) and at the Cork Society for Promoting the Fine Arts (1822). His early work which was done in Ireland is neat and well drawn. A fine, signed and dated, portrait of an unknown gentleman which was painted in Cork is in the Dumas Egerton Collection at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. This portrait was exhibited at the first exhibition of Irish miniature painting in Kilkenny and Limerick in 1999.

There are representative examples of his work on ivory in the Victoria and Albert Museum including a portrait of an Irish sitter Mrs James Welsh which was painted in 1821.

In 1826, Millington entered the Royal Academy Schools. He was awarded several prizes including a silver medal and a handsomely bound and inscribed volume of the Lectures of the Professors Barry, Opie and Fuseli for his copy of a painting by Rubens (10 December 1828).

Millington was later appointed curator of the RA school of painting. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, the Society of British Artists and the Suffolk Street Galleries from 1831-1870. His usual style of painting miniatures resembles the work of Alfred Edward Chalon RA (1780-1860). Chalon was Swiss of French descent and he lived in Ireland for a very brief period.

Dr. Paul Caffrey An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 9

9. Nathaniel Hone R.A. 1714-1784

‘Miniature Portrait of the Artist’s wife, Maria, in profile to left, her brown hair adorned with a string of pearls, wearing a yellow gown and white chemise’ Enamel gilt-metal mount oval 5.4 x 4.4 Signed with monogram and dated 1749 Inscribed verso: ‘Maria, Nath: Hone Pictoris, Uxor, (Wife of the Painter) AEt, 28, 1749 NH Pinxt’ (Illustrated actual size)

As the number of portraits of his wife and children attests, Hone was very much a family man.

However, confusion as to his marital status can be traced back to Strickland’s biography.

As well as sending Hone on a Grand Tour to Italy which he did not make (and omitting a trip to Paris which he did) Strickland errs in stating that Mary (or Molly, as Hone called her), the subject of the present miniature, outlived her husband and died in 1791. In fact Hone was married twice and Mary died in 1769.1 Molly was born Mary Earle and was a few years younger than her husband. They married in York Minster on 9 October 1742 and in the register Hone is described as of the city of York suggesting that he had been in residence for some time. Mary is recorded as of the parish of St. Michael Belfry’s. Earle is a name which has been associated with York since the medieval period and the Harry Earl that Hone painted as a boy (Victoria and Albert Museum) is likely to have been a relation of Molly.

‘A lady possessed of some property’, Molly was by repute the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman and Hone’s two surviving Memorandum Books in which the artist kept his accounts for the years 1752 and 1753 record the bi-annual payment of an annuity of £125 pounds.2 It is a likely hypothesis that Hone kept similar accounts throughout his working life, but that these two small volumes, today in the British Library, are the only ones to survive. The Memorandum Books which have recently been transcribed offer glimpses into the Hones’ married life from very close to the date of the present work which shows Molly aged twenty-eight.

‘Molly’s birthday’ writes Hone three years later on 10 February 1752 ‘and she is 31 years old’. This gives a year of Molly’s birth as 1721 which is corroborated by the inscription on the miniature. On that day he gave her 10 Page 10 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

shillings and sixpence. Just a few days later suggestive of ongoing romance in their relationship after ten years of marriage, Hone – in an aide memoire familiar to generations of forgetful husbands – writes ‘Valentine’s Day’ in the margin for 14 February. However, no significant expenditure is recorded to suggest that the date was marked by a present. Indeed on 9 October of the same year – their tenth wedding anniversary – Hone’s only entry is a record of rent paid.

On 15 February 1753 Hone records that he had borrowed five pounds five shillings from Molly clearly indicating that husband and wife, to some extent at least, were keeping their finances separate. In a further reversal of the usual pattern of Hone providing funds to his wife (admittedly from her own money) on 18 May 1753 he debits his account one pound one shilling ‘lost to Molly at cards’.

The Memorandum Books reveal other necessary items of expenditure for a young artist making his way in mid-eighteenth century London: the purchase of prints; concert going, making trips back to Ireland and also to Paris, though frustratingly he omits to complete the diary when in France. In general Hone’s payments to his wife related to unspecified expenditure but also included as debits paid to Molly are the cost of upholstery, linen, and coach hire. He records ‘24 pd for Childrens’ schooling’ and the ‘Expense to ye Ship When Molly went down last week to Margate’. Despite his lack of diligence as a gift giver, the picture that emerges from the Memorandum Books – albeit impressionistic – is of a distinctly companionate marriage between equals.

This view is supported by the painted record. The present work, one of the finest of all of Hone’s miniatures, is the earliest known portrait of Molly, though it is reasonable to suppose that he had painted her previously. In the same year, 1749, Hone painted a self-portrait in Van Dyck costume wearing at his breast a portrait miniature of his wife – which is slightly different from the present An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

work in showing her more full faced.3 In the miniature portrait Maria, too, is garbed in Van Dyckian outfit.

Some time later, perhaps in about 1760, Hone painted a small, and very direct image of his wife again showing her in profile – an unusual pose at this date – but looking in the other direction. This portrait, or a slightly larger version of it, appears in the background of a selfportrait in the National Gallery of Ireland, in which, in a further indication of conjugal respect: ‘Hone points to the picture in the background, and by implication, to its sitter, acknowledging his profession, but simultaneously affording his wife almost equal status in what is, in effect a double-portrait’.4 Another image within an image shows Molly’s features, again in profile, carved into an altar or plinth on which Hone leans in a further selfportrait in the National Gallery. Poignantly, it is without doubt a posthumous memorial to his wife who is shown again in profile ‘classicized and immortalized’.5 This is a virtuoso exercise in miniature painting, balancing rich chromatic effects with complete mastery

of detail – notably the sheen of the luminous pearls.

However such technical bravura is not at the expense of capturing character. Molly is shown as playfully alert and, while posing in profile, is looking out of the side of her eye at her husband as he paints here, creating a real sense of connection between artist and sitter and sitter and viewer.

William Laffan William Laffan and Brendan Rooney are preparing a monograph on Nathaniel Hone and invite owners of his works to get in touch via the Gorry Gallery.

Footnotes: 1 See Art and Architecture of Ireland, Volume 2 which gives the correct date of Mary’s death on page 309, but, confusingly, repeats the 1791 dated on page 312.

2 Walter Strickland, A Dictionary of Irish Artists (London and Dublin 1913) Vol. 1 p. 515.

3 Location unknown. See Paul Caffrey, Treasures to Hold, Irish and English Miniatures 167-1850, From the National Gallery of Ireland Collection (Dublin, 2000) p. 19.

4 Nicola Figgis and Brendan Rooney, Irish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, Volume 1 (Dublin 2001) p. 235.

5 ibid., 236.

10. Charles Robertson c.1760-1821

‘Mrs. Gertrude La Touche’ (née Uniacke Fitzgerald) Pencil and watercolour on paper 31 x 22 Signed and dated 1813. Details of sitter verso Roberston began by executing design in hair, and at the age of nine, exhibited some of his works at the Dublin Society of Artists in 1768/1769. He exhibited miniatures from 1775, and took his own studio in 69 South Great Georges Street, moving in 1783 to 11 Clarendon Street.

He painted in Dublin and London, exhibiting at the R.A, from 1790-1810.

As well as painting on ivory, he painted small portraits and flower pieces in watercolour. He was Secretary of the Hibernian Society of Artists and its Vice President in 1814. He rarely signed his works.

‘His miniatures are of a high quality; they are delicately painted with soft modelling’ (Daphne Foskett - A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters). There are examples of his work in many private collection and the V. & A. Museum, London, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and Irish National Gallery, Dublin.

Gertrude Uniacke Fitzgerald was the daughter of Robert Uniacke Fitzgerald of Corkbegg, near Whitegate, in Co. Cork and Jane Smyth. The family descended from the Knights of Kerry, and this branch of the Fitzgeralds was granted lands at Lisquinlan by James I in 1612. Robert was in fact born a Uniacke, being the second son of Thomas Uniacke of Youghal and Woodhouse, Co. Waterford by An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

his marriage to Helena Borr, daughter and co-heir of Christian Borr, a German born beef baron.

Robert came into property at Corkbegg, when he was six years of age, following the death of his great uncle, Robert Fitzgerald in 1718. He took the name and arms from his great uncle. Gertrude married in 1765 John La Touche, who was a member of the La Touche family of bankers, weavers and politicians. The partners of the La Touche Bank were the original stockholders of the bank of Ireland, which opened for business in 1783. They lived in Harristown House, near Brannockstown, Co. Kildare.

This house was the family home of the La Touche family, which they held from 1768 until 1921.

John and Gertrude had four siblings, Robert (his heir), Gertrude, Emily and John (Later MP for Co. Leitrim).

Robert married Lady Emily Le Poer Trench, daughter of 1st Earl of Clancarty. Gertrude married Francis James Mathew, 2nd Earl of Llandaff.

References A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters by Daphne Foskett 1972.

Treasures to hold: Irish and English Miniatures 1650-1850 from the National Gallery of Ireland by Paul Caffrey 2000.

W.G. Strickland’s Dictionary of Irish Art Vol. II. November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 11

11. Giuseppe Filippo Liborati Marchi Italian/British, 1735-1808 ‘Portrait of William Jameson, Esq. of Cork 1773’ Oil on canvas 76.2 x 64 Signed and dated upper right “Marchi 1773/March 17”, sitter holding letter inscribed “To Messrs. Hugh Jameson & Sons, Cork”, one arm resting on book titled “Lex Mercatoria (Merchant Law)”

Page 12 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

The Roman-born Marchi was the great protégée of Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). The elder artist encountered the young man during a tour of Italy in 1750 and, impressed by the artistic skill and promise of the then fifteen-yearold boy, Reynolds encouraged Marchi to accompany him back to England. Under the sponsorship of Reynolds, Marchi studied at St. Martin’s Lane Academy which had been founded in 1735 by William Hogarth. He then continued his studies with Reynolds, and is considered to be the first of Reynolds’ pupils (a list which would include Sir Thomas Lawrence and Henry Raeburn).

Marchi attained the status as the artist’s chief assistant, and was deemed so knowledgeable about Reynolds’ technique and process that he was considered the only person capable of restoring and conserving the master’s paintings – a full-time job in itself.

In addition to his studio work for Reynolds, Marchi was an accomplished painter and engraver in his own right and was known for his exceedingly detailed and precise mezzotints, many of which were reproduced in the most prominent journals of the day. During his one break with his mentor, he set up his own portrait studio in Swansea in 1768 – however, the respite lasted less than a year and he eventually returned to Reynolds’ studio.

Marchi exhibited portraits and engravings at the Society of Artists of Great Britain, of which he was a member, serving as Director in 1775.

Few examples of Marchi’s autonomous works exist.

The date of this accomplished and stylish portrait, 1773, reveals that it was completed not during his brief foray An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

working on his own, but during a time when he was active in Reynolds’ studio. A famous portrait by Reynolds of Marchi is conserved in the Reynolds Room of the Royal Academy of Arts. Marchi would have known Reynolds’s many Irish friends and sitters who ranged from Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith to the family of the Dukes of Leinster and here he paints a fine portrait of an eminent Cork merchant prince. Emphasising the Irish connection of the sitter is the fact that the pictures is signed, with a pun on the artist’s name, as having been painted on St. Patrick’s Day. The sitter holds a letter he has just received which is inscribed ‘To Messrs. Hugh Jameson & Sons, Cork’ and through this he can be identified as William Jameson the eldest son of Hugh Jameson. The Council Book of the Corporation of the City of Cork has a notation dated February 13, 1769, requesting that firstly William Jameson and secondly his brother Edward Jameson be admitted as freemen after having served out their apprenticeship with their father. Since it is customary for the eldest son to be listed first, and since it is known that Edward was born in 1752 – thus making him too young to be the sitter – it must be the case that William is the sitter presented here. The Hugh Jameson & Sons Company was a prominent and successful importation and distribution company (of stone and other building materials) working out of Morrison’s Island, the thriving mercantile and commerce community located outside of the old walled city of Cork. The family and the business flourished for generations, and there are mentions of both in the city and business journals of the time.

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 13

12. Jeremiah Hodges Mulcahy 1804-1889

‘A View of Carrigogunnell Castle, County Limerick’ Oil on Canvas 49 x 73 Signed and dated: ‘J.H. Mulcahy 1857’ Mulcahy is very much the painter of the County Limerick landscape, its historic demesnes, rolling hills and antiquarian remains. Patronised by the Dunravens of Adare, he also painted at Curragh Chase and Ballynaguarde as well as producing drawings of Limerick City – including St. John Castle and St. Mary’s Cathedral – to be engraved for S.C. Hall’s Ireland, Its Scenery and Character of 1852. Indeed, a couple of years earlier, Hall had eulogized Mulcahy as ‘Limerick’s native artist who has well embodied some of her finest landscapes in his sketches’ (S.C. Hall, The Life and Death of Ireland … 1849, p. 42). It is not surprising then that the ruins of Carrigogunnell Castle near Clarina a few miles west of Limerick City should have attracted his attention. Carrigogunnell is, according to Thomas Westropp, the great chronicler of Limerick’s antiquities, ‘an extremely picturesque Castle’ and ‘more like one on the Rhine than the average ruined castle on the Shannon’ (T.J Westropp, The Antiquities of Limerick and its Neighbourhood, 1916, p. 50).The first mention of the castle is in 1209 when ‘Carrae Ui Connaing’ was granted to Donnchadh Cairbreach, Prince of Thomond. It was later in the hands of the O’Briens and when it was attacked by Lord Grey, the Lord Deputy from 1580, it was described as standing ‘on a high rock’ and being the ‘key of all the country’. This position of eminence is apparent in Mulcahy’s dramatic painting, however, its supposed strategic significance and impregnability was not in evidence when, a century later during the siege of Limerick, it was initially held by a Jacobite force but then surrendered to Godert de Ginkell, later 1st Earl of Athlone on whose orders it was blown up. Mulcahy’s painting is dated 1857 and only a few years later in about 1860 the ruins were photographed Fig. 1 in an image which shows that, while the artist had produced an evocatively romantic portrayal, he had not strayed too far from accuracy.

Fig 1. Photograph of Carrigogunnell Castle c.1860.

Page 14 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

13. Samuel Walters 1811-1882

‘A Top-Sail Schooner Yacht off Great Orme’s Head near Liverpool 1832’ Oil on canvas 81.3 x 123.2 Signed and dated ‘Walters/1832’ (lower right) A leading member of the Liverpool school of marine artists, Samuel Walters was born in London in 1811.

He moved to Liverpool in 1830 and shortly afterwards began to paint maritime views and ‘ship portraits’.

Working from studios in Berry Street and Bold Street, he became a member of the Liverpool Academy of Arts in 1841, and had his work exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1842 to 1861. He died in 1882.

Signed ‘Walters’ and dated 1832, this is one of the artist’s earliest works and shows his skill in depicting rough seas and scudding clouds, with a variety of sailing ships heeling over in the wind. In the distance is visible Great Orme’s head, in North Wales. To the left, two barques, one a naval two-decker, approach one another, while in the right background a brigantine makes its way out to sea. In the foreground, a two-masted topsail schooner, all sails set, also ploughs through the waves. The schooner is flying three signal flags, a burgee and a red ensign. The signal flags follow the “Holyhead to Liverpool Numeric Flags” system, developed in the 1820’s by Lieutenant Watson, identifying the name, nationality and rig of a vessel. Watson’s system was used for around two decades but proved confusing, as over one thousand ships used the port of Liverpool annually and new codes were continually being assigned to the same vessels. The signal flags on the topsail schooner are, from top to bottom, a An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

red within a white rectangle, indicating 8, a white within a blue rectangle, 9, and a solid red flag, 7, giving the number 897. Walters painted several Liverpool topsail schooners: his 1837 painting of Pilot Vessel No. 2 “Kitty”, a vessel that ended its days in Berehaven, is similar in composition.

While the overall hull and rigging of this topsail schooner is similar to a Liverpool Pilot, the elaborate gilded prow and lack of a painted number on hull or sail indicates that it was a pleasure craft. Although the painting dates from before the founding of the Liverpool Yacht Club, the red burgee flying from the mizen mast, with crest surmounted by a cormorant or “Liver Bird”, is similar to the burgee adopted by the Liverpool Yacht Club of Wirral in the 1850’s. It has been suggested by Michael Naxton that this painting may depict a yacht that had taken part in the first regatta in 1832 of the Royal Irish Yacht Club, founded the previous year and that the owner had commissioned Walters to depict this event. Walters did indeed paint yachts participating in races in Dublin Bay, including his Big-cutters racing off the Kish Bank light vessel in Dublin Bay (1875) [Christie’s New York Dec 2008] Walters was also alert to the commercial possibilities offered by the trans-Atlantic trade and many of his paintings depict American steam packet and clipper ships. His painting of the Great Eastern is in the collection of the National Martitime Museum in Dun Laoghaire.

Peter Murray November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 15

14. Howard Eaton Helmick R.B.A. 1840-1907 ‘Visit to the Solicitor’ Oil on canvas 51 x 65 Signed and dated ’85

One of the most accomplished of the socio-realist painters to work in Ireland, Howard Helmick brought the sharp interest of an outsider into his images of Irish interiors.

Born into a farming family in Ohio, he graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and then studied under Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Throughout the 1870’s and ’80’s he exhibited Irish paintings from his addresses in London and Galway, often working in Kinsale, County Cork in the winter months. Both prolific and talented, he exhibited widely, not only at Dublin’s Royal Hibernian Academy, but in London’s Royal Academy, as well as in Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. During his lifetime, his paintings ‘were popular because they bridged the gap between the traditional demands of the Academy clientele and the need felt by artists for a more factual approach.’ Adept at working in a broad range of media, his narrative oil paintings provide a beautifully detailed, reliable insight into objects, interiors, costumes and social situations which have long since vanished.

He often focused on subjects involving the clergy, Page 16 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

farmers and their families, together with people in rural authority. This highly detailed scene which suggests a farmer and his wife in the midst of an important discussion with a solicitor or accountant, is comparable to others he exhibited in the 1880’s such as ‘A Difference

Fig. 1 An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

of Opinion’ 1882 and ‘The Legal Advisor’ 1882, (formerly Gorry Gallery). The contrast in mood and status between the advisor on the left, and those apparently receiving bad news on the right, is deftly expressed by Helmick in the way the man perches alertly, ill at ease, as well as by his modelling of their hands and faces. The wife, who has not been given a seat, has her face half lit yet it is dark on the side of her husband. She seems more shocked than he by the situation, yet the seated farmer has a look almost of resignation. In contrast, the older man is comfortably positioned. Forewarned, assured and in control of the situation, he has a lengthy document ready to be signed and a quill pen proffered for the task. His office is well furnished with a capacious fur rug on the boarded floor, his papers, heavy leather bound ledger and feather quills in an ink pot. Fig 1. Since the farming couple probably came from an earthen or flagged floored cabin, typically lacking books or

writing equipment, they are visibly less relaxed than their host in such surroundings. Although his back is warmed by a stove, the farmer sits uncomfortably on the edge of his chair. The circular folding gate-legged, pad footed mahogany table, is an elegant centrepiece, and suggests conservative taste as it was fashionable in the previous century. More ledgers, quills, papers and another gate-legged table adorn the room, and to the left a shadowy figure works in the background, beside a window that gives a cold, clear wintery light to his activities. The viewer is invited to speculate about the discussion, the document and its serious implications, against a political background of increasing rural unrest against landlords during that period. This anticipates Helmick’s overtly political painting, ‘News of the Land League’ of 1891 (one of two Helmicks in The National Gallery of Ireland), that demonstrate the artist’s sensitivity to such rural debate.

15. Howard Eaton Helmick R.B.A. 1840-1907 ‘Woman by the hearth’ Oil on canvas 48.2 x 43.5 Signed and dated l.r. H.Helmick.’75

Less political is the portrait of a woman in traditional rural clothing, warming her hands beside a floor level fire. Again the viewer is coaxed to read the symbols and interpret suggested narratives for her detached, distant gaze. This picture is reminiscent of Helmick’s subsequent painting ‘The Bachelor’ 1880, where a man sits alone in the same pose, on a similarly low seat, with his hands spread to catch the heat from the fire. However this sitter averts her eyes from the fire and gazes in contemplation beyond the viewer. We know she is (or was) married as denoted by her white bonnet, and that she is clearly Catholic. The symbolic objects of her religion hang prominently on the wall; her rosary, a black crucifix and an aspersorium, a little pail to hold holy water, inscribed IHS. Known as a Christogram ‘IHS’ represents the first three letters of the name Jesus from the Greek spelling. In the background, an indistinct unframed picture on the wall, probably represents one of many popularly available religious prints, of a Madonna, with her blue robes. The absence of a companion (or any sign of one), seems as significant as the heightened presence of her faith.

Although the room is neat and clean, the fire shows merely as a glimmer of light, and the painted render around it is worn away revealing brick beneath. It is distinctly sparse compared to the grander interiors Helmick painted of the clergy. As was customary until comparatively recent times, the woman smokes a clay pipe, commonly referred to as a dudeen (from Irish dúidín), and apart from her tiny teapot and bottle on the stake-legged ‘creepie’ stool, and a striped hearthrug, there is nothing in the way of luxurious comforts. Behind the distinctive corner-post An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

of her fireside bed can just be seen, a red painted corner cabinet displaying a few ornaments.

Dr. Claudia Kinmonth M.A. (R.C.A.) and with thanks to Dr. Lisa Godson M.A. (R.C.A.) References: C. Kinmonth ‘Howard Eaton Helmick Revisited: Matrimony and Material Culture through Irish Art’ in V. Krielkamp ed, Rural Ireland the Inside Story (MacMullen Museum of Art, Boston, 2012), 89-101.

P. Murray, ed., Whipping the Herring (Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, 2006), 144-5.

C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), i.

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 17

16. William Van der Hagen active 1720-d.1745

‘A Capriccio Landscape with Figures and Animals among Ruins’ Oil on canvas 101.5 x 126.8 In a carved and giltwood frame Van der Hagen is of fundamental importance to the establishment of the great landscape school that arose here from the mid-eighteenth century. His presence in Dublin is first noted by Harding’s Impartial Newsletter in 1722 where he is recorded as ‘lately arrived from London’ and as painting sets for the Theatre Royal.

Some ten years later he is recorded as painting the scenery for a staging of Cephalus and Procris, which was described at the time as ‘finer painted than ever seen in this kingdom’. In addition to his work in the theatre, van der Hagen was busy with other commissions from his earliest days in Ireland. In 1728 he was commissioned by the tapestry maker Robert Baillie to ‘take prospects’ of the places to be depicted in the six tapestries for the newly built House of Lords. In the end only two of his paintings were worked up into tapestries and these depart from his designs considerably.

Given his scene painting background and facility for composition it is not surprising that Van der Hagen also found work as a decorative painter. One eighteenthcentury source notes ‘he painted many houses in this kingdom’. In addition to these house decorations, he Page 18 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

was commissioned to paint a large view of the city of Waterford for which, in 1736, he was paid £20 by the Corporation. Based on stylistic similarities with this work it is possible to attribute to him the painting of the Duke of Dorset’s State Ball in Dublin Castle and also a bird’s-eye view of Carton. However, van der Hagen’s true importance lies in his capriccio landscapes such as the present work which gracefully combines animals and figures amidst the ruins of palatial architecture. Unlike the case in some capriccios, for example by followers of Vernet, the landscape is not dominated by the architectural elements, indeed it is as much of an exercise in pure landscape as a capriccio. Similar landscapes

by Van der Hagen were commissioned for Kilsharvan House, County Meath (private collection) which is preserved in a remarkably elaborate rococo frame, and also for patrons surrounding Dublin notably William Pallister, from Pallister House (later Loreto Convent) in Rathfarnham and Henry Segrave, for Cabragh House. In this genre, as Crookshank and Glin note his importance ‘simply cannot be overstated’. Almost single-handed, he created the eighteenth-century Irish landscape school, one of the greatest glories of our country’s art.

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

17. George Barret R.A. 1732-1784

‘An Irish Landscape inspired by the Dargle Valley’ Oil on canvas 100 x 127 In its original Irish carved and giltwood frame Provenance: Private Collection

In the years immediately preceding his departure for London, Barret seems to have been exceptionally busy and was receiving patronage from the most exalted levels of Irish society. This rather goes against Strickland’s assertion, paraphrasing Gilbert’s, History of Dublin, that Barret left Dublin for London as he was ‘finding little encouragement in his art.’ Certainly London offered wider scope for patronage but this is not to say that Barret was lacking commissions, or inspiration, at home. As Barret signs his work only very rarely, and dates pictures even less frequently, it has been difficult hitherto to define his Irish work and distinguish it from that produced in England. However, an analysis of his oeuvre seems to indicate that he produced some of his finest paintings not in the cosmopolitan capital with the all the opportunities that it offered but in Dublin. Anne Crookshank and the Knight and Glin note this point writing how his early work ‘established that he was already a completely developed painter before he came to London’. This large and ambitious landscape is a typically accomplished example of Barret’s Irish period and shows may of the characteristics for which he was so admired by his contemporaries. His art of the early 1760’s is a combination of the direct exposure to the breathtaking An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

scenery of the Wicklow Hills and Dargle Valley with his close study of the classical landscape tradition. The artist was later to articulate the importance of these twin sources of inspiration in a letter to a young artist, ‘paint from nature not forgetting art at the same time.’

Barret left Dublin for London in 1763. The following year he exhibited two works of the scenery of Powerscourt.

However, it should be noted that neither at the Society of Artists or later the Royal Academy did he subsequently exhibit works with an Irish title. Stylistically too there seems to be a marked difference in his work after he settled in England. The Richmond pictures, for example, are more manicured, dare one say, more English. Also there seems to have been a diminution in Barret’s art. ‘Some would argue’ Figgis and Rooney write ‘that after early works like his View of Powerscourt Waterfall, the development of Barret’s work was not necessarily progressive’. (Irish Art in the National Gallery of Ireland, Vol. 1, p. 44). Instead it is in early lush and romantic landscapes such as this that he made his most original contribution to landscape art.

Here there is a grandeur of conception and boldness of execution that led his friend James Barry to characterise Barret as ‘a superior genius to Claude’.

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 19

18. William Osborne R.H.A. 1823-1901 ‘At the stable door’ Oil on canvas 63.3 x 76

Original label verso – Stark Brothers, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin

19. Richard Brydges Beechey H.R.H.A. 1808-1895

‘The Last Trip’ Oil on board 26.7 x 39.7 Inscribed on old label verso: ‘The Last Trip’ by Beechey, written by the Admiral’s Daughter 1/3/83-WL The location in this picture is probably Ardnamurchan at the north end of the Sound of Mull, Scotland.

Page 20 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

20. James Latham 1696-1747

‘Portrait of a Young Lady, a Member of the Monck family, in a Yellow Dress’ Oil on canvas 76 x 63.5 in a carved and giltwood frame Provenance: Sold by Viscount Monck from Charleville House, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow Where acquired by Dr Richard Leeper, Medical Superintendant of St. Patrick’s Hospital Current owner great grandchild of Dr. Leeper (old label verso)

The present work is a typically forthright, but still very elegant, portrait in one of Latham’s standard half-length poses set within a feigned oval. It is extremely close to a further portrait of a young woman in the same pose, again set within a painted oval in the National Gallery of Ireland and also relates to a portrait of a member of the Abercorn family at Barronscourt. Like the National Gallery painting it was long considered to represent Esther Johnson (Swift’s Stella), though this is unlikely in light of the sitter’s age, and it too ‘demonstrates admirably the grace and delicacy with which Latham could imbue his female sitters’ (Nicola Figgis and Brendan Rooney, Irish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, Vol. 1, p. 314).

The picture was sold from Charleville House, Co. Wicklow in one of the dispersals from the house in 1929 or 1932 and instead of showing Stella it is highly likely that it depicts a young woman of the Monck family who had acquired the picturesque Charleville demesne in 1705. There is other evidence that the Moncks were patrons of Latham. Anne Crookshank records a portrait An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

sold in New York in 1946 which she suggests may represent either Thomas Monck or Henry Monck of Charleville, respectively father and uncle of the 1st Viscount. She further notes that ‘their uncle William and cousin Sarah both married into families, the Blighs and the Berkeleys, who were painted by Latham.’ (Anne Crookshank, ‘James Latham 1696-1747’, IAR, 1988, p. 70, No. 38). At the Charleville sale the picture was bought by the pioneering doctor Richard Leeper who had been appointed Medical Superintendent of St. Patrick’s Hospital in 1898 and who is credited with turning it from a Victorian lunatic asylum into a modern Hospital. No doubt the identification of the picture as Stella would have appealed to the head of Swift’s hospital for ‘fools and mad’ (where indeed a ward is named after her) and indeed this suggestion is supported by a reference in the archives of Gorry Gallery. In June 1906, James Joseph Gorry, the grandfather of the present owner, restored and lined a painting of Stella for Dr. Leeper which cannot be the present work which has not been lined, demonstrating that he owned at least two putative depictions of Swift’s great love, and possible wife.

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 21

21. Irish School, c.1840

‘View of Pembroke House, County Dublin with a Locomotive of the Dublin to Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) Railway in the Foreground’ Oil on panel 31 x 40.5

Provenance: William Hodgins Esq. of Pembroke House, Dublin; Mrs. William Hodgins; J.E. Saul Esq.; Mr and Mrs John Hunt Exhibited: Irish Houses and Landscapes, Ulster Museum, Belfast and Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin 1962, No. 82 Literature: Anne Crookshank, Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin, Desmond Guinness, James White, Irish Houses and Landscapes, (Dublin, 1963) p. 37.

A copy of this catalogue accompanies the picture.

This depiction of Pembroke House, is a charming evocation of an Irish suburban villa and was included for that reason in the groundbreaking 1963 exhibition Irish Houses and Landscapes, however, its main interest is as a remarkable document of Irish railway history.

Pembroke Lodge as it is described on early maps, sits at the end of Mount Merrion Avenue in Dublin and was one of several subsidiary properties connected to the Fitzwilliam Estate at Mount Merrion. After the death of the last Viscount Fitzwilliam without an heir the vast estate including much of South Dublin passed to the Earls of Pembroke.

The house was owned at the time the picture was painted by William Hodgkins who died in 1840, or else his widow. Placed near the coast road, Pembroke House was directly in the path of the Dublin to Kingstown Railway which opened in 1834 as the first railway in Ireland and the first commuter railway line in the world. While the engravings of the railway are familiar, this is the earliest painted depiction of an Irish railway and locomotive.

Page 22 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

22. John Henry Foley R.A., R.H.A. 1818-1874 ‘Youth by a Stream’ Bronze, height 54.5

Inscribed: J.H. Foley sculp executed for the Art Union of London 1846.

Born in Dublin, the son of a grocer, John Henry Foley entered the Royal Dublin Society Schools in 1833 and subsequently the Royal Academy Schools from 1835, studying under Richard Westmacott (1775-1856). He exhibited there from 1839 and first attracted attention at the R.A. in 1840 with his ‘Innocence’ and ‘Bacchus’, showing the influence of Etienne Maurice Falconet (1716-1791). He was to carry on producing works in this genre, culminating in Youth by a Stream, 1844.

These idealised sculptures are delicately executed and elegantly attenuated showing a Mannerist influence.

The Art Union (later the Art Journal), Foley’s most consistent critic and champion, considered Youth by a Stream to be the most beautiful work at the R.A. exhibition in 1844 and commissioned a statuette version of it in bronze of which Cat. No. 22 is an example.

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

Foley also sent Youth by a Stream to an exhibition in Westminister Hall in 1844, which resulted in his selection by the Commissioners, along with Calder Marshall and John Bell, to create works in sculpture for the new Houses of Parliament. His political portraits, in particular that of John Hampden, led to his rapid ascension to the status of the pre-eminent sculptor of mid-Victorian Britain. He was made an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1849 and a full member in 1858.

Among the works that followed were his monuments to Burke and Goldsmith outside Trinity College, Dublin (1868), Daniel O’Connell on O’Connell Street in Dublin (completed posthumously) and perhaps his most celebrated work, the seated Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, in the Albert Memorial (also completed posthumously).

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 23

23. Aloysius O’Kelly 1853-1936 ‘Gathering Wrack’ Oil on canvas 51.7 x 76.6 Signed lr: Aloysius O’Kelly

Exhibition: Re-orientations. Aloysius O’Kelly: Painting, Politics and Popular Culture, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, no. 4, 1999 Literature: Niamh O’Sullivan, Re-orientations. Aloysius O’Kelly: Painting, Politics and Popular Culture (Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 1999); and Aloysius O’Kelly: Art, Nation, Empire (Field Day, 2010), Catalogue No. 201.

From his training at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, and several years painting in Brittany in the 1870s, O’Kelly returned to the West of Ireland in the early 1880s, to the position of Special Artist to the Illustrated London News.

As an illustrator, he applied his considerable abilities to the contested political terrain of late nineteenthcentury Ireland, giving new visual expression to the harsh realities of rural life. Here he produced a number of striking images of poverty, set in what James Hack Tuke called this ‘region of desolation.’1 When O’Kelly first returned to his roots in Ireland it was after his discovery of Brittany. In both, high levels of illiteracy were countered by a vibrant oral tradition of story telling and music making. It was noted how the paintings and postcards of Brittany depicted a rugged land, not unlike the coast of Connemara. Irish visitors to Brittany thrived on the many historical, cultural, religious and ethnic connections. Eugene Davis, for example, described Bretons as a brave and hospitable Page 24 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

people, very like the Irish.2 Over time, jaundiced accounts of their respective stupidity, savagery and superstition were transformed into studies of their poverty, primitivism and piety. Ultimately, whether in Brittany or Connemara, O’Kelly was aware that both were communities in transition. His paintings of both function as moral allegories for freedom, dignity and industry – part of the empowerment of subaltern cultures, whether they be Irish or Breton.

O’Kelly’s Irish paintings led the Freeman’s Journal to declare him ‘the most important of modern artists’, and his work as occupying ‘exceptionally high rank’.3 His extensive overseas connections ensured that his narratives of an immiserated Irish peasantry’s survival and gradual empowerment were shown in the exhibition venues and drawing rooms as far as London, Paris and New York.

In the west of Ireland, as famine loomed once again in An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

the late 1870s, beaches were stripped bare of seaweed, collected as both food and fertilizer. Collecting seaweed was wretched work. In his Irish Portrait, Paul Henry described the Sisyphean ordeal of seaweed gathering, in stark contrast to descriptions of the indolent Irish common at the time.4 As there is little doubt but that O’Kelly’s political formation governed his perspective as a painter of Ireland, his vision of Brittany is significant. He returned again and again to paint the people and places of this region for almost half a century.

While his first visits, in the mid 1870s, occurred at a time before modernisation was evident, his later paintings, even when they highlight what might be considered traditional Breton features, tend to reflect an increasingly modern people.

In the case of this painting, it would seem that he has adapted his Irish subject matter to his Breton oeuvre. In the 1880s, O’Kelly showed three paintings of seaweed gatherers: RHA, no. 68, Seaweed Gatherers, Connemara, £35, 1885; Irish Artisans’ Exhibition, no. 42, Seaweed Gatherers, Connemara, £35, 1885; The Irish Exhibition in London of Pictures and Sculpture, Olympia, no. 111, Gathering Seaweed for Manure, Connemara, £20, 1888. Of these, he probably exhibited the same one on more than one occasion but, given the similarity of titles, we don’t know which version was exhibited in which location.

A later painting, Gathering Seaweed on the Galway Coast was illustrated in the New York magazine, The Gael, July 1899.

Gathering Seaweed 1885 Fig 1. shows two people scouring the shore for the few remaining scraps strewn on the sandy beach. The donkey is laden with a pardóg, a creel operated by a hinged under-section with a stick

which, when pulled, opened and deposited the manure in the potato ridge. Bent double and silhouetted against the sea, the woman is laden with a cliabh for carrying seaweed, rope biting into her shoulder, brine soaking her bowed back. She is one of the most powerful figures in the Irish visual lexicon. The Daily Express observed that the action of the ‘boy’ is strong, ‘sturdy against the deep blue of the Atlantic and the deep tone of the sky overhead’, and the figures ‘strong and vividly felt but marred with a painful hardness of outline’. Although of the same subject, this later painting stands in contrast to the 1885 version. Gathering Wrack is considerably more expressionistic and an image of more prosperous people in more prosperous times. In this version, O’Kelly has loosened his brushwork and painted a more fluid and dynamic manner.5 This painting dates to the early years of the twentieth century, and although reminiscent of his key Irish works in the 1880s, is probably set in Brittany.

Though drawn to the rural periphery in both France and Ireland, O’Kelly countered the primitivist condescension of many of his contemporaries, and offered a fascinating instance of a linkage between stylistic versatility and political radicalism. His true originality lay in the political dimension of his art, most marked in the mode of his representation of individuals and communities in transition.

Professsor Emeritus Niamh O’Sullivan Footnotes: 1 James Hack Tuke, Irish Distress and its Remedies: The Land Question, A Visit to Donegal and Connaught in the Spring of 1880 (London, 1880, 75).

2 Eugene Davis, Souvenirs of Irish Footprints over Europe, ed. Owen McGee (Dublin, 2006 [1890], 139).

3 Freeman’s Journal, 2 June 1888.

4 Paul Henry, An Irish Portrait (London, 1951, 69).

5 Daily Express, 2 March 1885.

Fig 1. Previously exhibited at the Gorry Gallery.

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 25

24. Sir William Orpen R.A., R.H.A. 1878-1931 ‘Miss Dorothy Stiles’ Oil on canvas 76 x 63 Signed lower right ORPEN

In 1915, with the portrait of Miss Lily Carstairs, Orpen’s portraiture took on a new dimension. The sitter, a daughter of the American art dealer, Charles Carstairs, was placed against a dark back-drop and the uncluttered directness of her portrait was greatly admired by critics. The painter returned to this successful half-length format when commissioned to paint Dorothy Stiles, the following year.

Miss Stiles was the daughter of Sir Harold Stiles, a distinguished surgeon who originally hailed from Lincoln. He studied at Edinburgh University, specialised in anatomy and in 1890 won the surgical prize essay of the Edinburgh branch of the Royal College of Surgeons. Stiles was one of the first clinicians to study the anatomy, pathology, and surgery of the breast and his pioneering work on the spread of cancer led to the Royal College of Surgeons’ Walker prize in 1895. Three years later he took up a residency at the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital where he practiced for much of his career, becoming president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1921, and of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1923 to 1925. Thus, Dorothy grew up in the Scots medical world.

A companion portrait by Orpen indicates that she was a keen golfer at a time when, following the example of Nancy Astor, it became fashionable for young women to practice the sport. There were a number of important courses near the Stiles’ family home at Whatton Lodge, Gullane in East Lothian.

However, in the present portrait ‘Dolly’ Stiles adopts a more conventional pose. Echoes of Romney in the soft ruffled neckline of the sitter’s blouse, contrasting with the sheen of her silk taffeta shawl, must have tested the painter. Orpen was too well aware of the traditions of eighteenth century portraiture not to feel their impact in contemporary dress.

He would have seen the press reports indicating that the case brought Henry Huntington regarding his doubtful Romney double full-length of the Mrs Siddons and Fanny Kemble was about to come to trial and may well have taken a passing interest in the dispute. Nevertheless, for all its eclecticism, Miss Dorothy Stiles presents us with a striking personality who clearly appealed to the painter.

We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his kind assistance in the preparation of this catalogue entry.

Page 26 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

25. Harry Jones Thaddeus R.H.A. 1860-1929

‘A Sheep Pen’ Oil on board 61.5 x 74 Signed and dated (lower left) H.J. THADDEUS/1894 Though the tone and style of this painting was informed

by French rustic naturalism, its subject is more likely to be English. Thaddeus travelled extensively throughout his career, but from the mid-1880s to 1904 was based in London and conducted much of his business in its vicinity. The character and russet tiles of the farm building on the right of the picture are certainly consistent with southern English vernacular architecture.

The calm simplicity of the subject – farm workers discussing stock – provides a gentle contrast to the agrarian subjects for which Thaddeus is better known.

His most celebrated works include depictions of peasants in moments of heightened emotion or peril (The Wounded Poacher (1880/1, NGI); An Irish Eviction, Co. Galway (1890, private collection; The Poachers (1890s, private collection)).

Animals are extremely unusual in Thaddeus’s work.

However, on the evidence of this painting, and a portrait of the artist’s son Freddie with the family dog (c.1904, private collection), a tender and intimate record never intended for public scrutiny, Thaddeus was both comfortable and competent in painting such subjectmatter. This picture invites comparison with the work of Joseph Malachy Kavanagh (1856-1918), who specialised in pastoral subjects and, like his compatriot and close contemporary Thaddeus, had spent time painting in Brittany in the early 1880s.

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

Its peculiarities notwithstanding, the painting bears many of the technical hallmarks of the artist’s work.

The palette, particularly the distinctive greens, and the orange-brown of the farm building’s roof, recur throughout Thaddeus’s oeuvre. The liberal use of dark outlines around the linear detail, meanwhile, is also characteristic of Thaddeus’s paintings in many genres, as is the assuredness of the drawing.

For several decades, Thaddeus enjoyed considerable success and critical acclaim as a society portrait painter, befriending and serving many members of Europe’s royal, aristocratic and political elite. Alternative subjects, like this example, provided him with welcome respite from the exacting demands of formal portraiture, and he displayed on many occasions an inclination to experiment. In this instance, the composition is relatively unorthodox – the horizontal and dramatically foreshortened sheep pen occupies most of the middle ground – and does not adhere to strict academic models. The picture is also larger than one might expect for such an understated subject.

The summary description of the foreground and background detail suggest that the painting is unfinished. However, the tonal balance of the work and the rendering of the elements in the middle ground (and the old cart on the left) indicate that the painting is at least very close to its final state.

Brendan Rooney November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 27

26. St. George Hare R.I., R.O.I. 1857-1933 ‘Portrait of a Girl’ Oil on canvas 153 x 102.3 Signed

The son of a Limerick dentist, Hare showed an early aptitude for drawing and was enrolled in the Limerick School of Art aged 15. Three years later he moved to London enrolling in the South Kensington School where he excelled winning numerous prizes. His career spanned both a succesful portraiture practice alongside an output of High Victorian genre paintings, both sentimental and occasionally risqué.

His portraits depict fashionable members of London society in the late Victorian and Edwardian era.

Very much a fixture of its artistic community (Hare Page 28 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

co-founded The Chelsea Arts Club with Whistler in 1891) he remained a prolific exhibitor at the Irish, English and Scottish Academies throughout his career.

Hare enjoyed the particular patronage of the Hoare banking family furnishing their London townhouse and country home at Stourhead with portraits and historical subjects. While it is possible that this substantial portrait of an elegant young woman is a member of that family she is certainly of the milieu so often painted by Hare’s Irish contemporaries in London, Orpen, Lavery and Kelly.

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

27. Seán O’Sullivan R.H.A. 1906-1964

‘Portrait of James Joyce, 1935’ Red chalk and charcoal with white highlights on beige paper 41 x 30.5 Signed, inscribed Paris and dated 1935 The National Gallery of Ireland have a study of Joyce by O’Sullivan in the same medium also executed in Paris in 1935 (Cat. No. 3557).

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 29

28. John Faulkner R.H.A. 1835-1894 ‘On the River Bandon, Co. Cork’ Watercolour on paper 42 x 72 Signed and inscribed

This watercolour view of a peaceful river with a rural town in the distance is characteristic of the work of John Faulkner (1835-1894), an artist who specialised in landscapes in Britain and Ireland. In the centre of the painting, on an elevation above the tree line, can be seen a church with a distinctive hexagonal tower and spire. To the left of the church, above the trees, appear slated roofs of houses. To the right of the trees, another section of the town is visible, again with an irregular terrace of two and three-storey slated houses. Two boys converse on a log beside the river, while sheep graze beneath the trees nearby. The view is taken from the riverbank, about one mile from the town.

Although signed and inscribed ‘on the river Bandon County Cork’, the location depicted in this painting is not easy to identify. Towns on the Bandon river include Dunmanway, Enniskeane, Ballineen, Bandon and Inishannon. Of these, only Bandon and Ballineen have churches with hexagonal steeples. However if the painting is indeed a view of Bandon or Ballineen, the artist has exaggerated the size of the hills on either side of the town, and also the mountains in the distance.

A student at the Royal Dublin Society’s School in 1848, Faulkner began to exhibit at the RHA from 1852 onwards. Some personal difficulty resulted in his resigning from the Academy in 1870 and emigrating to America for a decade or so. He returned to Ireland, and afterwards settled in London. In the 1880’s he recommenced exhibiting at the RHA. Over the course of his career, Faulkner painted many landscapes with lakes and rivers, cattle and bridges. He worked in North Wales, West Cork, Donegal, Connemara and Mayo, Scotland and throughout England. He also painted maritime scenes, generally involving rocky coastlines. Several of these marine paintings depict scenes in West Cork, including Crookhaven and Cape Clear. Several of Faulkner’s English views depict scenes near Rickmansworth in Herefordshire, while others depict scenes near Warwick and Uxbridge, indicating that he stayed at these places for a time. Most of his paintings are watercolours, although he also painted in oil. A watercolour by him, in the collection of the Crawford Art Gallery, shows the Avon near Warwick.

Peter Murray Page 30 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

29. Erskine Nicol R.S.A., A.R.A. 1825-1904 ‘Kept In’ Oil on canvas 61 x 80 Signed and dated lower right Nicol/70

Provenance: Williams and Son, London; Private Collection, UK Exhibited: Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1871, No. 297 (as ‘They couldn‘t say their Carritch‘) Glasgow, Scottish Loan Exhibition in aid of the Royal Infirmary, 1878, No. 3 Born in Leith, near Edinburgh on 3rd July 1825, Nicol began his artistic studies at The Trustees Academy alongside Sir William Allan and Thomas Duncan. He became Art Master at Leith Academy and held a similar position in Dublin from 1845-50.

Living in Ireland through the worst of the Famine he strongly identified with the plight of the Irish population and his sense of injustice is often reflected in his output over that period. Establishing a studio in Clonave, Co. Westmeath on the western edge of Lough Derravaragh he would return there every year from Dublin, Edinburgh and ultimately London to complete canvas’s already begun elsewhere. In later years ill health forced Nicol to curtail his travels and his Irish subject matter tended to be worked up from earlier sketches and memory. His observations of the daily life of the Irish small farmer and labourer and indeed their families at work and in their often impoverished homes have become significant social documents both in terms of their physical accuracy as well as their keen political insight.

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

Kept In depicts three young boys, detained in their classroon behind a latched and locked door. Their misdemenour, not having learned their Carritch or Catechism, leaves each boy depicted in a different emotional state. The boy on the left, Catechism opened but unobserved weeps into his jacket sleeve. The redhead at the centre, lost in thought chewing on a leather bag draw, may be memorising the passage fingered in the Catechism held in his right hand. Equally, you feel he could be attempting to work out a ruse to escape. The third child standing on the right warily observes the viewer.

Beneath them, two ragged schoolbags, beautifully observed in a still life vignette on the long, inclined school desk, display an unkempt collection of dogeared exercise books and a slate. The close focus on the children and their schoolbags, removing unnecessary compositional distractions, adds emotional weight to the painting. An observer, addressed so directly by this image, cannot fail to be engaged by a punishment familiar to us all.

November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 31

30. Robert Ballagh b.1943

‘Funeral of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa’ Limited edition giclée print 66 x 109 (10 artist’s proofs available) Signed and with am embossed stamp

31. Robert Ballagh b.1943

‘Portrait of Patrick Pearse’ Oil and mixed media on canvas 76 x 61 Signed verso (Not for sale)

Page 32 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

32. Gearóid Arthur Hayes b.1980 ‘Self Portrait in East Light’ Oil on canvas 61 x 50 Signed

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

33. Gearóid Arthur Hayes b.1980 ‘Spice Jar and Isabella’s Rose’ Oil on wood 18 x 28 Signed

36. Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples R.B.A. 1853-1943 ‘Manor House and Garden Co. Tyrone’ Watercolour on card 33 x 53 Signed and dated 1926

Provenance: The Artis Group Limited, New York A view of an as yet unidentified house probably dating from the early nineteenth century. The main block is shown here flanked by symmetrical single storey wings with battlemented canted bays which are in contrast with the main block which is classical in style.

34. Paul Kelly b.1968

37. Erskine Nicol R.S.A., A.R.A. 1825-1904

35. Paul Kelly b.1968

38. William Bingham McGuinness R.H.A. c.1853-1928

‘Ardgillan Rose Garden’ Oil on wood 58 x 68.5 Signed

‘Venice’ Oil on wood 18 x 24.2 Signed

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

‘Stacking Turf on the Bog’ Watercolour on paper 12.5 x 24 Signed and dated 1856

‘Fishing Boat on a Shore’ Watercolour on paper 23 x 33 Signed November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 33

39. & 40. John Henry Campbell 1757-1829

41. George Barrett Jnr. O.W.S. 1767-1842 ‘A View of Sir John Hasler’s House at Dalkey: Part of the Town, Hill of Howth & Dublin Bay, taken from the Hill’ Watercolour on card with original line and wash by the artist 19.7 x 26.5 Signed and inscribed

Provenance for both: Christie, Manson & Woods Ltd. On Friday, May 9, 1952 Executors Sale of Fred Skull Esq. of Bassetbury Manor, High Wycombe, Bucks Campbell’s fascinating view depicts the town of Dalkey which was once the busy port of Dublin and in order to protect it during the middle ages it was ringed with castles two of which remain on Castle street, one now incorporated in the town hall, the other on the opposite side of the street is now a ruin known as ‘Archbold’s Castle’. This view looking north east and dating from the early nineteenth century forms an important record of the town since it records buildings most of which have since been rebuilt or altered.

David Griffin

‘View near Belfast, Co. Antrim’ Watercolour on card with original line and wash by the artist 19.7 x 26.5 Signed and inscribed Page 34 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

‘Classical Lake Scene’ Watercolour on paper 33 x 45.5 Signed and dated 1825

Provenance: Thomas Agnew & Sons, Manchester Original label verso

42. Thomas Danby R.H.A., R.W.S. 1817-1886 ‘Gathering kindling wood’ Oil on canvas 61 x 91.5 Signed

43. William Syme H.R.H.A. fl.1808-1828 ‘Lake at Virginia, Co. Cavan’ Watercolour on paper 13.7 x 18.5 Signed, inscribed and dated 1808

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

44. & 45. Joseph Patrick Haverty 1794-1864

‘The public entry of George IV, King of England,(1762-1830) into Dublin 17th August 1821’ Aquatint, 38 x 60 by R. Havell and Son

‘The embarkation of George IV, King of England,(1762-1830) at Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) 3rd September, 1921’ Aquatint, 38 x 60 by R. Havell and Son

47. Daniel MacDonald 1821-1853 ‘Winnowing’ Pen and ink on paper 30 x 33 Signed and dated 1844

This sketch predates the Great Famine (1845-1852), showing a more pastoral view of Irish peasant life, before devastation befell the country. This boy is industriously engaged in tending crops, a protracted process of threshing, winnowing and sieving, to the point when grain could be ground into flour. In the background are the ethereal figures of a mother and child by a lake, set against the mountains, probably in Killarney where Macdonald sketched in 1844, and other years. That same year he painted his remarkable Fighter, and moved to London. Less than ten years later, on the cusp of a major reputation, he died at the age of 32.

Professor Emeritus Niamh O’Sullivan Niamh O’Sullivan, In the Lion’s Den: Daniel Macdonald, Ireland and Empire, Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, 2016.

48. John Nixon c.1750-1818

46. Mildred Anne Butler R.W.S. 1858-1941 ‘Cats in a garden’ Watercolour on paper 18 x 25.4

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

‘Figure Subject’ Pencil and watercolour on paper 11.2 x 16 Signed with initials, dated 1812 and inscribed ‘at Exeter’ November 2016

– Gorry Gallery – Page 35

49. Charles MacIver Grierson R.I., P.S. 1864-1939 ‘The artist doting on his model’ Watercolour on paper 56 x 77 Signed and dated 1918

Index of Artists and Catalogue Number (in red) Cat. No. page

Atkinson, George Mounsey Wheatley Ballagh, Robert

(2) 3

(30, 31) 32

Cat. No. page

Latham, James

(20) 21

MacDonald, Daniel

(47) 35

Barret, George

(17) 19

Malton, James

Barret, Jnr. George

(41) 34

Marchi, Giuseppe

(11) 12

Beechey, Richard Brydges

(19) 20

McGuinness, William Bingham

(38) 33

Butler, Mildred Anne

(46) 35

Millington, James Heath

Campbell, John Henry

(39, 40) 34

Mulcahy, Jeremiah Hodges

(7) 8

(8) 9 (12) 14

Danby, Thomas

(42) 34

Nicol, Erskine

(29, 37)

31, 33

Faulkner, John

(28) 30

Nixon, John

Foley, John Henry

(22) 23

O’Connor, James Arthur

Grierson, Charles MacIver

(49) 36

O’Kelly, Aloysius

(23) 24

Hagen, William Van der

(16) 18

Orpen, William

(24) 26

Hare, St. George

(26) 28

Osborne, William

(18) 20

(48) 35 (4, 5, 6)

6, 7

Haverty, Joseph Patrick

(44, 45) 35

O’Sullivan, Seán

(27) 29

Hayes, Gearóid

(32, 33)

32, 33

Robertson, Charles

(10) 11

Helmick, Howard

(14, 15)

16. 17

Staples, Robert Ponsonby

(36) 33

Syme, William

(43) 34

Thaddeus, Harry Jones

(25) 27

Walters, Samuel

(13) 15

Hone, Nathaniel Irish School Jones, Thomas Alfred, (Front Cover) Kelly, Paul Page 36 – Gorry Gallery – November 2016

(9) 10 (3, 21)

4, 22

(1) 2 (34, 35) 33

An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings

We are grateful to the following for their kind assistance in the preparation of this catalogue: Christopher Ashe Gillian Buckley Dr. Paul Caffrey Aisling Gorry David J. Griffin Ian Haslam Dr. Claudia Kinmonth M.A.(R.C.A.) William Laffan Richard Lawton Prof. Kenneth McConkey Susan Mulhall Peter Murray Prof. Niamh O’Sullivan Colin Rafferty Dr. Brendan Rooney

GORRY GALLERY 20 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2.

Telephone and Fax + 353 (0)1 679 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 by DOC - the_doc@eircom.net Printing by W&G Baird