GORRY GALLERY ‘On Seeing Mulvany’s Battle of Aughrim ’ by Anne Weber (Great Grandniece of the Artist) INDEX OF ARTISTS

Page Page The very word ‘Aughrim’, like ‘Custer’, carries with it current connotations as well as historical ones. I know the facts of the Battle of Bradley, Basil ...... 23, 24, 25 Kavanagh, Joseph Malachy ...... 19 Aughrim, but I lack the deep emotional connection of the native born Irish to her history. Nevertheless, I reacted strongly. Burton, Frederick William ...... 27 Lawless, Matthew James ...... 16, 17, 18 Collins, Charles ...... 10, 11 Luttrell, Edward ...... 21 The little shop was dark, narrow and crowded. There was a three-foot path through the jumble of tables, statuary, baskets and antiques. Colvill, Helen ...... 30 Marquis, James Richard ...... 28 The walls were covered with paintings, hung salon style, in every technique imaginable, nothing newer than the 1940s. We, my brother, the pho - Danby, James Francis ...... 22 McCloy, Samuel ...... 26 tographer and I, stopped just inside the door while the owner moved through the maze to turn on a light switch, somewhere in the back of the shop. Faulkner, John ...... 19, 29 Mulvany, John ...... 2-7 Hayes, Edwin ...... 22, 31 O’Connor, James Arthur ...... 12, 13, 14 Once the small ceiling light was on, we walked forward, single file. The painting hung mid-way into the shop on the right hand wall in a narrow, plain frame labeled ‘John Mulvany c. 1839-1906’ . This could be bad, I thought. Was it the original ? I asked myself. I immediately Helmick, Howard ...... 8 O’Kelly, Aloysius ...... 30 looked to the right hand corner. And there it was, Uncle John’s signature. I had a million questions but I couldn’t say a word. I tried to step Hone, Horace ...... 21 Topham, Francis William ...... 26 back to take in the entire image and bumped into my brother. Both of us were silent. To actually see this painting, to know it was our uncle’s, to Hone, Nathaniel ...... 20, 21 Watkins, Bartolomew Colles ...... 29 know what he had gone through to paint it, what his hopes had been for it, to know what had happened to those hopes and his career, was incredibly Inglis, J. Johnston ...... 15 bittersweet. My eyes filled with tears.

The owner opened the curtains at the front of the shop and more light seeped in. I stepped close again to look at the brush strokes. I marveled at the loose layering of subtle color in the foreground. My eyes followed the compositional elements to the center where one stroke of color held the plane, de - fined the form and marked the middle space. He knew what he was doing; he was a good painter; this is in good shape. I hope Niamh agrees.

I began to ask my questions. Mulvany’s commitment to the painting, and the cost he paid, were all there in the journey the painting had taken since it left his easel – from great praise in Ireland to being found in a storage shed of a con - signment dealer somewhere north of San Francisco, one hundred and twenty-five years later.

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

Christopher Ashe William Laffan Colin Rafferty Gillian Buckley Susan Mulhall F. GlennThompson Dr. Paul Caffrey Prof. Niamh O’Sullivan Anne Weber Claudia Kinmonth M.A. (R.C.A.) PhD Joe Woods

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

COvER: JOHN MULvANY C. 1839 - 1906 (D ETAIL ) Saturday (during Exhibition only) 11.30 a.m. - 2.30 p.m. CATALOgUE NUMbER 11 www.gorrygallery.ie

© GORRY GALLERY LTD. Origination and Printing by Colorman (Ireland) Ltd. GORRY GALLERY requests the pleasure of your company at the private view of

An Exhibition of 17th - 20th Century Irish Paintings

Please note change of date

on Sunday 5th December 2010

Wine 3 o’clock

This exhibition can be viewed prior to the opening by appointment also Wednesday 1st - Friday 3rd December 11:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. and Saturday 4th December 2 - 5 p.m. and at www.gorrygallery.ie Kindly note that all paintings in this exhibition are for sale from 3.00 p.m.

5th December - 18th December 2010 11. JOhn MuLvAnY c. 1839 - 1906 ‘Battle of Aughrim’ Oil on canvas 88.6 x 198.1cm Signed and Dated 1885

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

EXHIBITED: Paris, 1885; Dublin, 1 July 1885; Hospe’s Art Store, Omaha, January 1887; Bazaar for St Vincent’s Foundlings Home, Exposition Building, Chicago; Loeser’s Art Gallery, Brooklyn, July 1909.

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

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

Forget not the field where they perish’d, The truest, the last of the brave All gone - and the bright hope we cherish’d Gone with them, and quench’d in their grave! Thomas Moore

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

2 ollowing a series of disastrous defeats, notably at the Bee, 30 November 1890) FBoyne, Lieut.-General St Ruth, commander of the Jacobite forces regrouped 20,000 men on the Hill of During the Civil War, he knew Generals Sheridan, Aughrim in Co. Galway. On 12 July 1691, Godert de Custer, Logan and Meagher, and painted many Ginkel, commander of the Williamite forces, came monumental works such as Sheridan’s Ride from through the Pass at Urraghry, intent on finishing off the Winchester , McPherson and Revenge and the Battle of army of King James. But the Jacobites put up a valiant Atlanta . Following the war, he enrolled at the Academy fight and, briefly, it looked as if they might win. The in Munich in 1869, where he was awarded the medal of moment was short-lived, but is perpetuated for future honour. He then went to Antwerp, Paris, Amsterdam and generations in Mulvany’s Battle of Aughrim .1 The Hague. Finally, he visited Ireland to work on his scheme to produce a pictorial Irish history. Confident that he would find patrons in the US, he returned there In 1885, Mulvany brought the huge cavalry fight back to with the material for a series, which was to include such life. Hear the strike and clash of swords and bayonets; landmarks in Irish history as The Siege of Athlone and The the neighing and snorting of horses; the crackling and Battle of Benburb . While visiting friends, the contents of sparking of flintlock and musket; the blare and whirr of his studio went up in the great Chicago fire in 1871. Left trumpets and hautboys; the grunts and roars of men; with the clothes on his back, he went west. From 1872 to and the weeping and wailing of women and children 1883, he painted western American subjects. In 1876, he who paced the periphery of the battle field. came to critical attention with The Preliminary Trial of a Contemporary descriptions include harrowing accounts Horsethief – A Scene from a Western Court , exhibited at the of terrain slippy with blood, and the screams and moans National Academy of Design. of thousands of wounded soldiers, as they begged and prayed to be taken out of their agony. What possessed an But his breakthrough at a national level in the United artist in the late nineteenth century to paint such a scene? States came in 1876 with General Custer’s defeat on the Little Big Horn by Sioux warriors. In the immediate Following the ravages of the Great Irish Famine, in 1851, aftermath of the historic battle, Mulvany travelled to John Mulvany emigrated from Moynalty, Co. Meath, as Montana and embarked on the epochal painting, Custer’s a child stowaway to the US, where he worked on the Last Rally (1881) – some seventeen years later, it was still canals. Not surprisingly, his early Irish experiences had on the move around America, drawing the crowds and shaped his political sensibility. According to The Gaelic making Mulvany a fortune. Other Western subject American (6 March 1909), Mulvany was ‘of an pictures by Mulvany include Lynch Law , Back to the imaginative and inquiring mind, his teacher’s favourite Wigwam , Scouts of the Yellowstone and Perils of the Pony … they both loved Ireland and hated the Sassenach.’ Express . In addition, Mulvany had an extensive and Master Rogers travelled the country searching for prestigious portrait practice, including General T.F. monuments and traditions redolent of Ireland’s past. Meagher , Brigham Young , Robert Emme t and Sitting Bull . Indeed, according to Thomas Tuite, Mulvany’s erstwhile biographer, ‘the repeated beating back of the combined Following the remarkable success of Custer’s Last Rally , English, Dutch and Danish cavalry at the Pass of Mulvany was at the peak of his artistic powers. When Urachree by the magnificent Irish horsemen under St the Irish-American Club in Chicago wished to decorate Ruth ‘was a theme upon which [Master Rogers] grew their new rooms with Irish pictures, one of the committee eloquent’; erudite, passionate and zealous, his teacher was deputed to scour Boston, Philadelphia, New York, held forth on Owen Roe O’Neill, Father Murphy and the Baltimore and Washington, but returned empty-handed. Emmets. ( Gaelic American , 6 March 1909) All of this, They sought Mulvany’s advice. He explained that the Mulvany took with him to America. wealthy Irish had little time for national art, nationalists could not afford to buy art, and painters could not live by In America, according to The Nation (15 January 1887) ideals alone. It was at this point that Mulvany began to ‘he became an infant phenomenon as a colourist… and turn his attention once again to Ireland and the study of was soon earning thousands of dollars a month’. the momentous battle that finally settled the Williamite Notwithstanding the hyperbole of late nineteenth Wars. century art criticism, the reviews of his work bordered on the ecstatic. His years at the front during the Civil War WHY AUGHRIM? would suggest that he was physically adventurous. The myth of Aughrim is largely built on the randomness Professor John Mulvany (as he was known) was, of the Jacobite defeat – the decapitation of St Ruth – as according to the many newspaper reports of the day, one stray cannon ball consigns Ireland to another two charming and witty, erudite and an excellent linguist. He hundred years of subjugation. As if to emphasize this, was known as more than an occasional ladies’ man, with the decapitation of the British soldier in Mulvany’s ‘an army of admiring and devoted friends.’ ( Omaha Daily painting signals, in its one-on-one combat, the valour of

3 the Irish by comparison with the contingency of the the Diaspora, Mulvany was able to reach international British victory. From near triumph, to resounding defeat, audiences. the story of Aughrim was subsequently reclaimed in Irish cultural memory as an enduring symbol of THE WAR entitlement, a site for future resurgence. In the conflict between the Protestant William of Orange and the Catholic James 11, the crown of England, Scotland and Ireland was at stake, as part of the wider European wars of the seventeenth century: James was supported by Catholic Jacobites in Ireland and France, William was supported by English, Scottish, Dutch, Danish, French Huguenots and Ulster Protestants; the Dutch Republic was at war with France, and the Stuarts were allies of the Catholic Louis X1V.

When James’ wife gave birth to a son in 1688, the prospect of an enduring Catholic Stuart dynasty impelled Parliament to issue an invitation to William of Orange to take the throne with his wife, Mary, daughter of James. The Catholics of Ireland were prepared to fight for James in the hope of regaining political and religious lands and freedoms. Although there was no love between them, James looked to Ireland to regain his kingdoms and landed in Kinsale in 1689. Louis X1V sent Lieut.-General St Ruth to Ireland with officers, troops and supplies. William needed to quell the Jacobite opposition in Ireland to secure British dominance and the Protestant Settlement whose power was based on land Mulvany’s painting is an audacious revanche . In a ownership. striking pre-figuration, he depicts a Williamite officer in the centre of the picture being beheaded by his Jacobite opponent, who wrenches the battered royal cavalry standard from his dying enemy, and holds it victoriously (albeit prematurely) aloft. Mulvany thus chose his moment carefully – the short-lived victory by Jacobite forces over the Williamite army at Urraghry, before they were vanquished on the hill of Aughrim. But by showing the weakest link in the Jacobite position, Mulvany illustrates the bravery of the Irish, as they took on the superior forces of William.

But why did Mulvany select Aughrim as his plumb line to the past? In the late nineteenth century, radical nationalism focussed not only on peasant proprietorship but on political independence. Such boldness required representation on a large scale: galvanising, iconic images that had the power to incite action. Mulvany’s Aughrim was one of the bloodiest battles ever fought in Aughrim was begun only fifteen years after the 1867 Ireland, with 7,000 slain out of the 40,000 engaged in the insurrection, six years after the formation of the National confrontation. Following the defeat, Galway and Land League, and the bicentennial of the battle was less Limerick fell fast. For these reasons, Aughrim rather than ten years hence. This was no incidental exercise in than the Boyne can be considered the decisive battle of nostalgia then, but a purposeful, positioning image, the Williamite wars in Ireland. In its subsequent mythic designed to press powerful memories into a versions, the battle functioned much as the loss of contemporary political use. If out of violence and trauma Meagher’s Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg, or Pickett’s comes renewed resolve, the Battle of Aughrim may be seen men charging to their deaths at Gettysburg – celebrated as an exemplification of Ireland’s glorious past, and a call defeats resounding to the credit to the losers. Indeed, t he to arms in the present. Moreover, by creating Aughrim for characterisation of Aughrim as the Gettysburg of Ireland

4 would have not displeased the Irish-American Mulvany, The large house, Kirwan’s Lodge, rises full square, ‘like himself a Civil War artist and an ardent Irish nationalist. a sullen barrier to retreat’. 2 The huge cavalry horses, with Inevitably, it was also likened to Ireland’s Little Bighorn. flaring nostrils and bulging eyes, force their way through the fray, while a barely discernible ghostly squadron emerges from the very centre of the painting. The dichotomous handling extends the sense of space and conveys the impression of unlimited action, of a battle that was both terrifying and terminal, but had infinite ideological possibilities.

Although Mulvany engaged in extensive research, he was not hidebound – his inability to gain access to the royal armouries was a factor – but he was decidedly more interested in the narrative than the detail. For dramatic effect, no less than legibility, he colour coded elements of the painting. Glenn Thompson notes that ‘the Williamite cavalry wear scarlet coats with yellow facings and white laced tricorn hats’ ( in reality they wore a number of different types and colours), the Jacobites wear green (naturally) and crimson. Thompson explains that ‘no record of any Jacobite regiment wearing green has so far come to light’, but there is much that is not known about the uniforms of the period and certainly ‘sources of information on military costume from that period were scarce when Mulvany commenced his work on this painting.’ The Williamite horses are all black and greys, the Jacobite, browns and bays. The Williamites wear tricorns, and the Jacobites wear moustaches. Glenn Thompson explains that ‘it was highly unlikely that any uniform relating to the Williamite Wars was on display at JOhn MuLvAnY (courtesy of Anne Weber) the Tower of London’ anyway, with the result that THE PAINTING Mulvany’s research threw up uniforms that are more 3 Mulvany was absorbed by the battle and spent eighteenth than seventeenth century . This was not just considerable time on the battlefield. And although the evidence of the unavailability of seventeenth century terrain is clearly indentifiable by its contours, his military imagery, but also of Mulvany’s historical deployment of details is governed by artistic interests being predominantly painterly and political considerations. rather than literal.

The morning mist and swirling gunpowder are not Although no slave to detail, in other respects, the merely descriptive of the battle conditions then, but painting is full of it: the pairs of pistols, worn on either devices that function aesthetically and narratively; they side of the saddle, carried in embroidered holsters in obliterate parts of the field and allow Mulvany the regimental colours, the blanket rolls carried behind the freedom to be at times meticulous and detailed, and at saddle, the bandoliers, cuirasses, sashes, spurs, boots and others atmospheric and evocative. gauntlets, and, of course, the white plumes of Navarre in the heavy steel caps. These have different functions in the painting – they expand the drama, they authenticate, and they have symbolic value – which all goes to show that Mulvany knew his stuff, as an artist, an historian, and a polemicist.

When he went to London to do the research into the uniforms and weaponry, Mulvany had difficulty gaining access to the Tower, as his republican views and associates were known. The early 1880s in London were characterised by violence, instigated by the dynamiting campaign funded by Clan-na-Gael in America. In January 1885, there was an explosion at London Bridge.

5 Mulvany, a member of Clan-na-Gael, fled to Paris with unharmonious note throughout the whole mass of the painting; he believed that if he had not, he would painting. In technique and handling he follows the have spent the rest of his life in an English prison. In broad and realistic style in which de Neuville was so Paris, the famous Goupil engraved it, and Mulvany then effective; and, indeed, there is a good deal in the whole took the painting back to Dublin. complexion of the work to remind one strongly of that artist. As an historical picture, “Aughrim” is deserving DUBLIN REACTION of the attention of every Irishman, and if an When the Fenian and founder of the Irish National Land opportunity for its exhibition be afforded we would League, Michael Davitt, saw the Battle of Aughrim in July advise everyone who wishes to see the subject 1885, he wrote to Mulvany, declaring: sympathetically as well as poetically treated to avail of it immediately. you deserve the thanks of the entire Irish race; for in it you have not only upheld the artistic But not everyone was so well disposed. On approaching reputation of Ireland, but your genius has transferred ‘a certain print seller not very far from Grafton-Street’ 5 to canvass [sic] the dauntless bravery of those in the hope of showing the painting, Mulvany was ‘Who died, their land to save, chided for turning ‘his talents to the promotion of On Aughrim’s slope.’ discontent’. The Dublin University Review picked up the story and reported that the behaviour of the ‘loyalist Davitt went on to commend Mulvany for teaching shopkeepers of Ireland will astonish even those who had ‘subsequent generations the great lesson in a nation’s the strongest notion about their snobbery, their want of march to freedom which your brush now most patriotism, their narrow bigotry, and the low nature of eloquently enforces.’ 4 their general intelligence’. According to the Dublin University Review , the same print seller has for months In Dublin, the Freeman’s Journal (11 July 1885) announced been exhibiting in his windows ‘a large engraving of two that half-naked cocottes fighting a duel’, commenting sardonically that no one but an artist of genius could possibly have produced such a masterly and realistic picture… Not Art, or what passes for such, can foster worse things only are the faces of the men great studies of triumph, than “discontent”.’ … We suppose there is hardly despair or ferocity, but even the horses have been another quarter of the civilised world where such a treated with a power that Landseer might envy. The man and such a picture would have met with such a work may be said to be of the school of De Neuville – reception; but, then, scarcely any other quarter of the the manipulation is broad, rapid, and consequently world is cursed with the presence of a faction so bitter singularly effective, the drawing is perfect, and the in their hatred of the land of their births as ‘the loyal colour masterly. minority’ of Dublin and Ireland. 6

Stylistically, the composition of Aughrim is circular, Happily, Mulvany was not reliant on such begrudgery. cyclonic and sweeping: full of verve, dynamism and He had his own plans for the painting, packed it up and energy, and the handling is consummately skilled and returned with it to Chicago. inventive. CHICAGO United Ireland (11 July 1885) concurred: In 1858, Irish immigrants founded the Fenians, an extension of the Irish Republican Brotherhood back As a composition it is extremely clever and wholly home. Initially the movement spread amongst Irish natural; apparently untrammelled by conventionality, troops in the Union Army during the Civil War. After yet in this respect suggestive of the rule of ars celare the war, they combined their politics with their military artem. The lights are extremely well managed, and the training. Two abortive raids on Canada in 1866 and 1870 sweep of country taken in, by means of the shape of led to internal factionalism, forcing the disintegration of the painting and adequate treatment, imposing…. the Brotherhood and the take-over by Clan-na-Gael, Action and movement are everywhere, and some of which had been founded in New York in 1867. Mulvany the groupings of the combatants are so effective and was a member of the Brotherhood and attended the life-like that it wants but life-size to make the beholder important 2 nd Congress of the Fenian movement in fancy that he is present amid the carnage and the roar Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1865. And he continued his of battle in the very truth. The tone of the picture is association thereafter with Clan-na-Gael. worthy of high praise. In the treatment of the unmanageable British red, Mr Mulvany has shown Clan-na-Gael was a physical force movement, 40,000 great skill, so that it is impossible to detect a single strong at this time. Chicago was a major stronghold, and

6 it raised significant funds for revolutionary activity in Famous Battle of Aughrim on Sunday, July 12, 1691 . Ireland. Alexander Sullivan, its leading light, had quite a Wakeman founded the influential literary magazine, the reputation in Chicago. Sullivan pledged the support of Chicago Current , in 1883, and was a writer of considerable Clan-na-Gael to certain politicians in return for contemporary importance. In his preliminary review in preferential treatment. This increased his support the Louisville Courier-Journal (28 July 1883), before it was amongst the Irish, to whom he passed on favours; hence even finished, he declared that the painting ‘will stand bribery, kickbacks and nepotism were common as the grandest possible representation of the most occurrences. Sullivan established an unshakeable desperate encounter in that awful cavalry connection between Irish nationalism and the shady side struggle…which ruined the fortunes of the Stuart of machine politics. And his gang were known ward dynasty, and set the seal of servitude, but never of ‘healers’, thugs and liquor dealers. servility, upon the people of Ireland’. He went on to say that ‘No country possesses such an instantaneous At the Clan-na-Gael convention in Chicago in 1881, expression of all qualities of sublimity and power’. Sullivan, Michael Boland and Denis Feeley were appointed as the Revolutionary Directory, and became Although Aughrim was initially rapturously received, known as the Triangle. Sullivan’s power was now there was a sudden froideur . As a supporter of Cronin, unbounded. They supported ‘active policy’, but not Mulvany was to be taught a lesson, and the sale of the dynamiting per se (although Sullivan later took it upon painting fell through. He was now disillusioned and in himself to extend approval). Doubting the resolve of the debt. But, as Anne Weber, great grand-niece of the artist, more conservative Land League, Sullivan extracted half says, Mulvany ‘was skilled enough to incriminate those the raised money to get revolutionary activity going (but he held responsible’. 7 The trials that followed Cronin’s also allegedly diverted funds into his own project, to murder were inconclusive. Everyone knew who speculate on the Chicago Board of Trade). In 1885, the committed the murder but convictions proved year Mulvany returned to Chicago with his Battle of impossible. Around 1901, Mulvany began work on The Aughrim, there was a move to curb Sullivan. Dr Patrick Anarchists , a painting that showed a group of men cutting Henry Cronin, Professor of medicine at St Louis College a pack of cards to see who would commit murder… of Physicians and Surgeons, a prominent member of the Thereafter, as if life imitated art, Mulvany himself was Clan, initially friends with Sullivan, became his found dead, drowned in the Hudson River. implacable enemy. Anticipating his assassination, Cronin entrusted Thomas Tuite, a friend of Mulvany, with his There is a common assumption that Irish artists of the ‘evidence’ to implicate Sullivan. And, sure enough, in late nineteenth century transcended the harsh realities of 1889, Cronin’s death followed suit. political and economic life either by emigrating and assimilating, or staying put and avoiding subjects that When Mulvany showed Aughrim in Chicago, the Citizen might mirror or create discontent. The finding of the (1885) pronounced it ‘admirable’ and ‘magnificent’. The Battle of Aughrim places visual art at the centre of an Chicago Current (22 August 1885) noted that it was ‘a emergent cultural and political nationalism, traditionally masterpiece on the one hand and a superb testimonial to perceived as the preserve of poets and playwrights, patriotic valor on the other’. The two main Chicagoan journalists and politicians. Michael Davitt’s closing sources for the painting are John F. Finerty and Edgar L. words to John Mulvany in 1885 were: ‘I envy Chicago Wakeman – two heavy hitters of Chicago journalism and that picture. If I were a wealthy man it should never literary life. The fiery Hon. John F. Finerty , editor of the leave Ireland.’ 8 Its return in 2010 is thus a matter of Citizen , orator extraordinaire and one-term Congressman considerable interest, not least in that amongst those who from Illinois, wrote many of the paeans of praise in the did go, many were undeservedly forgotten. pamphlet, “Aughrim” A Superb Picture of the Terrible Prof. Niamh O’Sullivan Cavalry Fight at the Pass of Urachree at the Opening of the

1 I am grateful to Anne Weber, Glenn Thompson and Professor Luke Gibbons for discussions and advice on this painting. A short version of this appeared in the Irish Times , 2 October 2010. 2 Quoted from a contemporary undated and unidentified newspaper cutting, Alice Garvey Collection. There is a small sketch in a notebook of Mulvany naming the house as Kirwan’s Lodge. I am grateful to Mrs Jo O’Sullivan Scannell and Canon Trevor Sullivan for confirming this identification. Originally known as Tristane’s Lodge, it was renamed Kirwan’s, and was the house of wealthy landowning gentry, one of the 12 tribes of Galway. Sarah Kirwan married Edward Carson in 1879; as ever, as a bastion of colonialism, Mulvany chose his markers carefully. Nothing remains of the house, but some stables. 3 I am very grateful to Glenn Thompson for conversation and correspondence on the military aspects of this painting. 4 13 July 1885, “Aughrim” A Superb Picture of the Terrible Cavalry Fight at the Pass of Urachree at the Opening of the Famous Battle of Aughrim on Sunday, July 12, 1691, Painted by John Mulvany . 5 Thomas Cranfield, 115 Grafton Street, Dublin. 6 Dublin University Review , August 1885, also reported verbatim in The Nation , 8 August 1885. 7 Anne Weber-Scobie, The Life and Work of Irish-American Artist John Mulvany (1839-1906) , Binghamton, NY, 1993, p. 56. 8 “Aughrim” A Superb Picture: This letter was also quoted in the Boston Pilot , July 1885 (I am grateful to Dr Carla King for bringing this to my attention).

7 22. hOWARD hELMICK R.B.A. (1845-1907) Probably ‘The Village Schoolmaster’ as exhibited Irish Exhibition in London 1888 (lent by J.J.) Signed and dated lower left, H. Helmick 1881 Oil on canvas, 59 x 48cm.

orn in Zanesville, Ohio, Helmick was trained in Paris Britain, and during the 1870’s and 1880’s set up two Bat the Academy des Beaux Arts, under the academic studios in the south and west of Ireland. Some of his guidance of Alexandre Cabanel, subsequently working finest work dated from the 1880’s, and his studies of Irish as a genre and figure painter, an etcher and an illustrator. farmers, priests, squires, lawyers, teachers, doctors and He moved to London and studied from a capacious country people provide us with detailed insights into studio in Holland Park, becoming a member of the rural life at that time. Society of British Artists and the Royal Society of Painters His studies of schoolmasters and teachers include ‘ The and Etchers. He exhibited nearly four dozen paintings in Country Dancing Master ’, ‘ The Schoolmaster’s moment of

8 leisure ’ (both exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874)[i], James Brenan, addressed that issue by graphically and subsequently ‘ A Schoolmaster ’ (watercolour) and ‘ The portraying poverty in the Irish classroom in 1887, with Village Schoolmaster ’ (both exhibited at The Irish his detailed oil, ‘ Bankrupt ’. This painting does seem likely Exhibition in London in 1888).[ii] Other titles are also to be Helmick’s ‘ The Village Schoolmaster ’, which was suggestive of his interest in the same subject, for example exhibited along with ‘ Bankrupt ’ in 1888 at the Irish ‘The Disciplinarian ’, and ‘ Le Maitre d’ecole de village ’ (of Exhibition in London.[iv] Helmick’s portrayal of this 1881), which may possibly be a French title for this one. benevolent and learned character, is further emphasised ‘The Schoolmaster’s moment of Leisure ’ shows a similarly by the inclusion of piles of books, and an alphabet chart dressed man, evidently in an Irish schoolroom, playing on the wall on the right, above the end of a long form his flute while a small boy sits in the corner wearing a where the pupils would have sat. conical dunce’s hat as a punishment. That scene suggests As in his ‘ Schoolmaster’s Moment of Leisure ’, the table to that the child has been detained alone after school as a the left is of mahogany, with pad feet, and seems to have punishment, and the teacher sits beside a table, which is come down in the world to the humble schoolroom, laden with books, a candle and a small switch or whip. perhaps donated by benevolent local gentry. Since One is invited to sympathise with the small boy amidst teachers often relied on the generosity of parents and the symbolic narrative. Helmick would have been aware local people to run their schoolrooms, such an item of the rough atmosphere prevalent in some Irish country seems appropriate. In many schools, pupils arrived schools, and other painters before him had visited that carrying their own contributions of turf for the fire which uncomfortable subject more overtly, namely William kept the schoolroom warm in winter. Despite often Mulready (with ‘ Idle Boys ’ of 1815 and ‘ The Last In ’, enduring conditions of poverty, according to Crofton 1835).[iii] Croker, ‘the village schoolmaster forms a peculiar This comparatively contemplative, peaceful composition character; and next to the lord of the manor, the parson shows the master alone, in the corner of his schoolroom, and the priest, he is the most important personage in the concentrating on preparing a quill pen. Accordingly, parish’.[v] Here he wears the long swallow tail coat and beside him on the table, is an inkwell, and a piece of breeches, practical for riding a horse, which were only paper. Low light rakes across the scene from a window just still fashionable at that time. He sits on a distinctive (out of view), to the left, suggesting an early morning Sligo chair, with arms, which features in some of scene, before the childrens’ arrival. Since the 6th century, Helmick’s other paintings.[vi] Such a distinctive chair some of the best feathers for making into writing quills, was typically confined in a relatively small area, around were the flight feathers of the geese (which would have Sligo and Galway, so it seems probable that the painting been easily available in rural Ireland). For hardening the was produced when he worked from his Galway studio, tip, the feather was heated or dipped into alum, then rather than the one he also used further south, in Kinsale. carefully shaped and split with a blade (hence the ‘pen Other objects appear and reappear in his paintings, knife’) to hold ink and produce an even line. Each quill suggesting that he resorted to props, so the jug on the pen lasted about a week before it wore and needed floor behind the chair, and the blue book hanging from a attention. Such preparation, which is what Helmick nail on the wall, look the same as those in ‘ Warming delineates here, was laborious and time-consuming, and Hands by the Fire ’ (1880).[vii] On the table, amongst the would also have been a skill taught to his pupils. By the piles of books, is a combined candle and rush light mid nineteenth century, metal dipping nibs were being holder, which would have enabled children to read and mass-produced; the forerunners of the fountain pen. write into the evenings, on the darkest winter days. Helmick may be suggesting that this elderly teacher was old fashioned, or more likely that he could not afford to Dr Claudia Kinmonth buy the newer, readymade pens for himself and his pupils. The state of rural schools at that time was indeed neglected, and an Irish contemporary of Helmick’s,

[i] A.Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their works…1769-1904, vol. 2 (Kingsmead, 1970), 63. A Watercolour of this title was sold through the Gorry Gallery in 2008, see Gorry Gallery Catalogue (March 2008), p. 49. [ii] A.M. Stewart, Irish Art Loan Exhibitions 1765-1927, Index of Artists, vol.1 (Manton, 1990), 319. [iii] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), figs 240, 241. [iv] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig. 250. Another painting, entitled ‘An Old master’ is a possible match, it was exhibited in Liverpool between 1876-1887. [v] A. MacManus, The Irish Hedge School and its Books 1695-1831 (Four Courts Press, 2004), 95. [vi] Notably in ‘A Difference of Opinion’ reproduced in C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig. 215. C. Kinmonth, Irish Country Furniture 1700-1950 (Yale University Press, 1993), 51-2, figs. 60-63. [vii] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), p.ii.

9 8. ChARLEs COLLIns died c. 1744 ‘A Still-Life with Pears, Peaches, Apples, Plums, Grapes, Hazelnuts and Flowers on a Bank’ Oil on canvas 63.5 x 75.5cm Signed and dated C.Collins. FEC. 1734 iographical evidence is scarce for Charles Collins, to be inferior to none’. Seemingly this formed a pendant Bwhich is disappointing as he is of immense interest as to another work by the artist showing live fowl. A further a rare, and highly talented, Irish still-life painter. Indeed, still-life was included in the collection of James Digges Collins is one of the most significant Irish artists to have La Touche that was auctioned in Geminiani’s rooms in emerged since the publication of Crookshank and Glin’s Dublin in May 1764, while the Kildares of Carton also groundbreaking work, The Painters of Ireland . Although owned an example of his art. mentioned by Strickland as working in Ireland, he had fallen into obscurity and, by 1981, when his striking Still As is shown in the current display, Collins worked in Life with a Lobster on a Delft Dish was purchased by the both oil and watercolour and seems to have been Tate Gallery in London, the little that was known of his exclusively a painter of still-life. Vertue referred to him life was confused; his dates and place of birth were as a ‘bird painter’, although also noting a self-portrait, routinely wrongly given. It has now been shown that while Horace Walpole described him as a painter of ‘all Collins cannot be identical with his Chichester namesake, sorts of fowl and game’. Certainly game predominates in and he has since been reclaimed for the Irish school; he is Collins’s oeuvre, as is evident in the 1730 still-life in the in fact one of the most accomplished artists to have National Gallery of Ireland, a work very much in the worked here in the early and mid-eighteenth century. Dutch tradition of seventeenth-century artists such as Jan Weenix, Franz Snyders and Jan Fyt. Instead, however, of Collins is specifically referred to as an ‘Irish Master’ in being stylistically retardataire , here he is working in a the Dublin Evening Post for 4 May 1786 in connection with manner comparable to his most advanced French the sale of the collection of the doctor, and property contemporaries such as Alexandre-François Desportes developer, Gustavus Hume in which a game still-life was and Jean-Baptise Oudry. More narrowly, within British favourably noted: ‘a dead hare, dead birds etc...allowed art, Collins has been lauded – despite the lowly ranking by the first judges in point of elegance and performance, of the genre in which he worked – as being among those artists whose ‘feeling for paint and colour...heralded

10 Reynolds’. the windows of Parson’s shop (now alas no longer there) filled entirely with birds by Collins. It was then Collins is perhaps the only Irish artist of the period to the worst moment of the slump and the drawings consistently explore the genre of still-life in oil. It is were marked at what even then were fantastically low noteworthy how William Ashford, for example, quickly prices....Even at these prices the family finances abandoned still-life for landscape after painting a few, ...would not allow me to buy more than two – but I rather naïve, flower pieces early in his career. There was, never got better value or more pleasure for about 30s. however, a market for the genre, though not comparable In two or three days the whole lot were gone. in scale to that for portraiture or landscape, and many still-lives were exhibited at the Society of Artists in Collins completed several hundred sheets for White, Dublin, though often by amateurs. At the same time, still- life flourished in media other than oil, most notably in the art of Samuel Dixon and his Capel Street apprentices such as Daniel O’Keeffe, James Reilly and Gustavus Hamilton, whose ‘ Still Life with Cherries’, exhibited in this gallery in December 2008, makes for an interesting comparison with the still-life of fruit shown here. The one other eighteenth-century artist in oil who worked in a manner close to Collins in Dublin was the slightly later Charles Lewis. Indeed, it is noticeable that still-life was not much practiced by Irish artists even of a later date: William Scott is of course the great exception, though William Orpen’s occasional essays in the genre, notably ‘Reflections – China and Japan’ are also masterly (Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane). 10. ChARLEs COLLIns died c. 1744 ‘A Silver Pheasant’ Watercolour on paper heightened with white 34.3 x 49 cm Collins’s ‘ Still-Life with Fruit’, signed and dated to 1734, Signed and dated Charles Collins Fecit 1737 is an altogether more attractive subject than some of the Exhibited: The Art of A Nation: Three Centuries of Irish artist’s game-pieces. Here, as if to illustrate the bounty of Painting , Pyms Gallery, London 2002 Number 2 nature, pears, peaches, apples, plums, grapes, hazelnuts and flowers are piled up on a bank. Collins gives full rein almost all of which are now in the collection of McGill to his masterly, illusionistic technique, beautifully University, Montreal. One of the few of his bird drawings expressing the succulence of the fruit. His use of colour not in a public collection, his Silver Pheasant is dated 1737. is vibrant and his forms are powerfully modelled. The Here Collins cleverly captures the haughty nature of the composition, though artful, is simple and unaffected bird. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable notes that the rather more in the tradition of artists like Luis Meléndez character of the Silver Pheasant (or Lophura than the exuberantly baroque tromp l’oeil effects of some Nycthemera) has led it to be used as a metaphor for a eighteenth-century Dutch artists; this is a masterly piece beautiful young lady of the aristocracy. He quotes: ‘one of still-life painting. would think you a silver pheasant you give yourself such airs’. The fruit still-life dates from 1734, two years before Collins embarked on what is perhaps his most famous The bird is shown parallel to the picture plane in an work, a series of twelve oil paintings of birds in arrangement similar to that of his Egyptian Vulture (Paul naturalistic settings. Nine of these are now owned by the Mellon Center for British Art, Yale) but in contrast to National Trust at Anglsey Abbey, three are in an Irish some of the more dynamic and active postures of other private collection. Also in 1736, Collins, together with birds such as the Common Buzzard (Cecil Higgins Art Peter Paillou, embarked on a series of watercolours of Gallery, Bedford). The simplicity of line gives the British birds and mammals for the collector Taylor White. composition an almost calligraphic elegance. Collins These sheets have long been admired. Perhaps the carefully distinguishes between the different textures of greatest authority of English watercolours, Iolo Williams, the feathers and the skin of the bird’s feet with particular recounts an amusing anecdote which highlights how emphasis placed on the pheasant’s alert, beady eye much Collins’ watercolours have been treasured by which confronts the viewer with an almost knowing connoisseurs. glance. Works such as this fully confirm Iolo Williams’ judgment of Collins as the finest bird painter of the One of my most exciting experiences as a period. His previously unknown fruit still-life must, collector...was when, one day in, I suppose, 1931 my however, also give him a similar distinction in that genre wife and I got off a bus in the Brompton Road and saw too.

11 7. JAMEs ARthuR O’COnnOR c. 1792-1841 ‘The Avenue, A View in the Parc de Bruxelles’ Oil on canvas 35.5 x 45cm signed and dated: ‘J.A. O’Connor 1835’ Literature: Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, The Painters of Ireland (London, 1978) p. 212, illustrated. John Hutchinson, James Arthur O’Connor (Dublin, 1985) p. 180. Exhibited: National Gallery of Ireland, James Arthur O’Connor , 1985, no. 78

’Connor was an artist in constant need of done when far from his native land, is correctly identified Oinspiration from the physical landscape. He here for the first time. expressed this eloquently in relation to the Irish O’Connor was, in fact, a surprisingly adventurous, if landscape that he loved so well. ‘I am about [to go] to the occasionally unlucky, traveller. From May 1826 he spent wild and beautiful scenery of my native country to a year working in Belgium ‘and there painted and refresh my memory, and get some studies to help me in disposed of many pictures’ however ‘his success was future exertion of my profession – I know I will be clouded; for while in Brussels he was swindled of a benefited by a sight of the grand....scenery that I will considerable sum of money’; this was not the only time meet with in Ireland and hope to show it on canvas’. such misfortunes happened on his travels. O’Connor Among paradoxes that attend O’Connor’s feeling for also enjoyed an extended sojourn on the continent from nature are the fact that he was a city dweller for almost September 1832 to November 1, 1833, primarily based in his entire life and also that he spent most of career as a, Paris but also touring Germany. In between these dates somewhat reluctant, emigrant. One of his few cityscapes, there is the suggestion of a further trip to Brussels in

12 1830, the year of the Belgian revolution. Just as his trips Lambert Godecharle, completed in 1784. Indeed the home to Ireland furnished him with subject matter for putto holding an artist’s palette in one of the groups may the ‘exertion of his profession’ back in London, so too his have been what drew O’Connor’s attention to the spot time on the continent also provided him with fruitful in the first place. inspiration. The painting is dated by O’Connor to 1835 in which year O’Connor seems to have benefited from the taste for he was in London unless a further visit to the continent British landscape painting that a exhibition of is unrecorded – which seems unlikely. It is clear that he Constable’s works had engendered on the continent and, completed the work based on sketches done on the spot. according to his obituary, his paintings ‘obtained very We know that such drawings existed as in 1842, just after high prices in France and Belgium’. Mulvany further the artist’s death, several watercolours of clearly related notes that O’Connor ‘made valuable studies in France’; subject matter were exhibited at the Royal Hibernian this directly echoes O’Connor’s own phraseology in Academy. Two were entitled ‘ The Park at Brussels ’, while relation to the ‘studies’ he executed in Ireland and both others showed the Place du Sablon and the ‘ Market at the work that O’Connor completed on the continent and Brussels ’. The fact that The Avenue was completed back in that effected back in his studio from sketches done on the London explains the inexactitudes as to topography and spot are shown by the paintings in this selection. particular as to the form of the sculptural groups. Equally though O’Connor has deliberately improved on the Among O’Connor’s most famous works, and arguably scene so as to include more prominently both of the one of the finest he ever painted, is a View of an Avenue pedestals supporting their sculptures. As the (cat. no. 7). Reproduced in Crookshank and Glin’s The accompanying photograph illustrates, there is no spot Painters of Ireland and included in the seminal O’Connor within the park from which they can simultaneously be show at the National Gallery of Ireland in 1985, it has seen so clearly. been lost to public sight ever since. In the National Gallery catalogue, John Hutchinson suggests that the 1835 the year of the View of an Avenue saw the final great picture may represent a scene in Paris, and indeed given flowering of O’Connor’s talent and from the same year the length of time the artist spent in the French capital dates his masterpiece ‘ The Poachers’ (National Gallery of and his sketches of French parks such as the Bois de Ireland). The sheer quality and sparkle of the work with Boulogne (NGI) this is wholly plausible. Hutchinson, its dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, based on the noting that the location of the painting has not been strong perspective lines converging on a spot at lower identified, also suggests Brussels as the setting for this left make it among the most arresting, and at the same rather haunting and mysterious work. In this latter time appealing, of all of O’Connor’s paintings. suggestion, he was correct, and here, admittedly with If The Avenue was completed in his London studio from some artistic license O’Connor shows the central avenue ‘studies’ made in Brussels, three others works seem of the Parc de Bruxelles. certain to have been done on the continent (cat. no.4, 5, 6 p.14). They are framed, en suite in distinctively French, or Belgium, Empire-style frames which were clearly ‘made to measure’ for the pictures. However, they are painted on prepared boards of London manufacture. Two show typical Wicklow views while the other, moonlit, scene with canal barges and an elaborate hoist has a distinctly continental feel. This together with the evidence of the frames and the provenance from a French private collection suggests that they were painted on the continent with materials that O’Connor had brought with him on one of the two, or possibly three, trips he made. If this is the case, it is interesting that he paints the Irish subject from memory - not difficult given his intimate knowledge of the scenery of his native land. Laid out in the years after 1775 on the ruins of the castle The moonlit scene (cat no.4) in particular is a remarkable of the Dukes of Brabant, the park is still one of the most work in terms of O’Connor’s technique. The saucer-like attractive green areas in the centre of Brussels, its moon is painted with a level of gutsy impasto that is peaceful, verdant calm now giving little idea of the bitter difficult to parallel elsewhere in O’Connor’s oeuvre. He fighting that had taken place here in the Revolution of has clearly relished the effects to be had from thick, 1830, a year, in which as has been noted above, O’Connor buttery paint standing proud of the surface. Taken may have been in the city. Instead of choosing to paint together these works of continental influence present the more frequently depicted, monumental gateway on another side of this much-loved artist. Rue Royale, O’Connor shows the internal axis focusing on the sculptures of the Arts and Sciences by Gilles-

13 4. JAMEs ARthuR O’COnnOR c. 1792-1841 ‘Canal Dock, Moonlight’ Oil on Board, 17.8 x 22.9cm. Signed with initials Provenance: Private Collection, France

5. JAMEs ARthuR O’COnnOR c. 1792-1841 ‘River Landscape with Figures on a Path’ Oil on Board, 17.8 x 22.9cm. Signed with initials Provenance: Private Collection, France

6. JAMEs ARthuR O’COnnOR c. 1792-1841 ‘Woodland Landscape with Woman on a Path’ Oil on Board, 17.8 x 22.9cm. Signed with initials Provenance: Private Collection, France

14 12. J. JOhnstOn InGLIs R.h.A. fl . 1885-1903 ‘The Conservatory’ Oil on Canvas, 99 x 90.5cm. Signed, also inscribed on reverse

One of six sons of a successful Scots-born Dublin show’s distinct parallel’s with the work of Walter businessman, Sir Malcolm Inglis D.L., J.P. J. Johnston Osborne and in respect of their similar social and artistic Inglis was a regular exhibitor at the R.H.A. from 1885 Dublin background it would seem likely that they would until 1903. have known each others work well. This is borne out by In 1892 he was appointed an A.R.H.A and later in the the fact that Osborne painted a portrait Sir Malcolm same year, a full member. Judging from the subjects of Inglis in 1902 when he was Chairman of the the Dublin his exhibited paintings he seems to have travelled Chamber of Commerce (Exhibited R.H.A., 1902, no.73). extensively throughout Ireland and abroad particularly According to an inscription on the reverse of the canvas in Scotland and the Lake District. this painting was sold to another Dublin artist, Samuel The brushwork and subject matter of our painting Rowan Watson (1853-1923) in 1905.

15 15. MAtthEW JAMEs LAWLEss 1837-1864 ‘Waiting for an Audience’ Oil on panel 45.7 x 30.2cm Signed and Dated ‘M.J. Lawless’ pinxt 1861 Exhibited: Royal Academy, London, 1861, no. 316

16 ust a handful of works survive by Matthew James Related to A Sick Call is another recent discovery An JLawless who was described by Strickland as ‘one of Angling Party , acquired by the National Gallery of the most brilliant and promising young artists to whom Ireland in 2008 while other works by Lawless to have Ireland has given birth’. Indeed, for many years he was also emerged from the shadows include A Sailor Waiting known only by A Sick Call which has been one of the best- Embarkation of 1859 (private collection) (below) and The loved paintings in the National Gallery’s collection since Reading Lesson of 1857 which was exhibited in this gallery it was acquired as far back as 1925. However, his extant in December 2008. oeuvre, tiny though it is, is a least an improvement on the situation in 1987 when Christopher Bailey could lament: ‘is it not...unfortunate that we, at present only have “ A Sick Call ” to remember Matthew James Lawless as a painter?’ It is pleasing then to increase our knowledge of the artist with the publication of this important painting which he exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1861: this now makes a total of six paintings in Lawless’s surviving oeuvre. At the same time it is gratifying to be able to unravel the painting’s subject matter and iconography. Matthew James Lawless was born in Dublin in 1837. He came from an eminent and prosperous Catholic family with strong legal and literary connections whose most famous member was ‘Honest’ Jack Lawless, a leading member of the Catholic Association and colleague of Daniel O’Connell. At an early age, Lawless was sent to school near Bath when his parents moved to London; he also studied at Clongowes Wood. Lawless began his artistic training under Francis Stephen Cary, continuing under James Matthews Leigh. Around 1860, it seems Lawless took a study trip to Bruges and Paris where he came under the influence of continental artists, notably, as we shall see, Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier Always sickly, Lawless’s health deteriorated from the end of 1860 and he died of consumption just four years The influence of Meissonier has often been perceived in later. A Sick Call demands to be interpreted in light of his Lawless’s work and now that we are in a better position consumption condition. It shows a solemn priest being to reconstruct his oeuvre it can be demonstrated more rowed across a river with his acolytes, summoned to clearly. It is arguable that while Lawless was certainly administer the last rites by the lamenting women to his influenced by the older French artist, he was no mere left. One of Lawless’s early biographers noted that the model for the priest was a certain Mr Richardson and it has been plausibly suggested by Bailey that this refers to Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson (1828-1896) a physician, who having trained in Glasgow, moved to London in about 1853. In 1856 he was appointed to the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the Chest. Bailey writes: ‘It is tempting to imagine that he attended Lawless in this professional capacity. If this was the case, and considering Lawless’s profound piety, it seems fitting that Richardson should be portrayed in this redemptive role’. Certainly the mood of quiet foreboding in A Sick Call is made enormously poignant when one considers Lawless’s health at this time. After completing it, Lawless was unable to work. He wrote to Mrs Coltart, whose husband had commissioned the painting, ‘if I can only get to the easel again I shall be quite satisfied and happy’. follower and in his work of 1861 The Dinner Party (above) He died a year later, aged just twenty-seven, on 6 August (private collection) and Waiting for an Audience (cat. no. 1864. 15) he was working along precisely similar lines to

17 Meissonier’s contemporary production. Signed and dated 1861, and exhibited in that year’s Royal Academy Come Jack lets drink a pot of ale exhibition, The Dinner Party shows a courting couple at table talking flirtatiously over a glass of wine. The And I shall tell thee such a tale costume and interior are of the English Civil War period; Will make thine ears to ring; of particular note is the finely painted still-life of objects scattered over the tiled floor. My coin is spent, my time is lost Writing before the rediscovery of these two paintings, And I this only fruit can boast Bailey suggested from their titles that they were ‘small That once I saw my King. conversation pieces set in the eighteenth century’, a genre much associated with Meissonier. In fact both pictures depict subjects from the previous century and so are I went to Court in hope to find more akin to Lawless’s earlier Royal Academy exhibits Some of my friends in place; of cavalier subjects. Bailey’s general point though about the influence of Meissonier is still valid and the French And walking there, I had a sight artist had also painted seventeenth-century subjects. Of all the crew, but by this light, Indeed his Game of Piquet (National Museum Wales) (below) also of 1861 shares many compositional I hardly knew one face.

(W. Chappell, Popular Music of Olden Times , London 1859, 358) Affixed to the reverse of the picture is the second of the verses quoted above which has enabled the subject matter of the painting to be identified. A specific grievance of the cavaliers was the fact that in 1661 thirty seats on the Privy Council went to men who had fought against Charles I and that veterans, like the cavalier in Lawless’s painting, were sidelined. A manuscript copy of the poem is dated to 1661 ( King’s Pamphlets , No. 19, fol. 1661), and given his love of antiquarian lore it may not be a coincidence that it was exactly two hundred years later that Lawless exhibited similarities – such as the diagonal placing of a stool. his work at the Royal Academy. Lawless had met Meissonier in Paris and won his favour. As he recorded ‘I begged from his, as a relic, one of his Waiting for an Audience epitomizes Strickland’s old brushes’. One further work by Lawless again done in description of the artist’s meticulous style, ‘painted with 1861 is a fine and spirited drawing of related subject great care and minute finish, full of character and matter: The Cavalier’s Escape . Engraved by Joseph Swain remarkable for [its] extraordinary correctness of (1820-1909) and published in the periodical Once a Week , costume’. He brings great pathos to this scene of Lawless here illustrates a poem of the same title by memories of past glories and manly despair at rejection. Walter Thornbury (1828-76). The drawing was also It is pleasing to add this fine example to the newly found recently acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland. works by Lawless other than A Sick Call . A suggestive link between the National Gallery picture and Waiting for Again taking inspiration from a literary source and also an Audience is the fact that the cavalier is likely to be exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1861, Waiting for an taken from the same model, Joe Wall, who is shown as Audience is a powerful image showing Lawless’s the oarsman in A Sick Call ; it was recorded by White in breathtaking technical ability. It illustrates a popular 1898 that Wall ‘sat for many of [Lawless’s] cavalier ballad, The Cavalier’s Complaint , which bemoans the fact subjects’. that the restored court of Charles II had been filled with pleasure seeking young favourites at the expense of those who had fought and suffered for his father in the Civil War:

18 14. JOsEph MALAChY KAvAnAGh R.h.A. 1856-1918 ‘A Suburban Stream, Dublin’ Oil on Board 33 x 40.5cm Signed, also signed, inscribed and dated July 1907 Verso Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy 1909 Number 64

29. JOhn FAuLKnER R.h.A. c. 1830-1880 ‘Fishermen by a Lake’ (Possibly Lough Dan, County Wicklow) Oil on Canvas 59 x 90cm Signed and dated 1862

19 set against an uncluttered background which focuses the eye on the sitter. Hone did this in his earlier portraits in miniature. In the oil portraits the children have large eyes, slightly glazed expressions, fresh complexions and red lips. The eyes are strongly painted with highlights and the attention to minute details derives from Hone’s background as an enamellist. Hone captures the innocent charm of his young son in his white collar and double breasted coat. The budding artist holds a neatly tied folio under his right arm. One of Nathaniel Hone’s greatest contributions to art in the eighteenth century was his invention of this new type of picture during the 1760s which was a combination of the `fancy picture’ with the portrait. (1.) This is exemplified in his numerous portraits of his children and grandchildren such as his Portrait of a Boy Sketching (National Gallery of Ireland) and David the Shepherd Boy (exhibited R.A. 1771) which are portraits of his son Horace. These `fancy pictures’ of Hone’s children and grandchildren were re-workings of the old master classical tradition of depicting pastoral imagery and allegorical figures from antiquity. The fact that they are also portraits, full of character and conveying the 9. nAthAnIEL hOnE thE ELDER R.A. 1718 - 1784 individuality of the sitters, gives great freshness to the ‘Portrait of John Camillus Hone holding a red folio’ work. Hone also painted similar portraits of his (1759-1836) daughters and grand-daughters. His elder daughter Oil on canvas on panel 51 x 43.5cm Lydia Hone (1760-1775) was the subject of a portrait in Painted c. 1771 which she holds a white rabbit which she saved from a fox (engraved 1771). Hone did portraits of his grand- athaniel Hone was born in Dublin and by 1748 he daughter Eleanor or Mary Metcalfe (b.1767/8) in Miss had moved to London where he spent the most part N Metcalfe with a Pomeranian Dog (engraved 1772) and of his career. Although he visited Ireland regularly his Portrait of a Girl with a Pomeranian Dog (1776) (also greatest contribution to Irish art was as the founder of exhibited at The Gorry Gallery in 2003). Hone’s direct the Hone dynasty of artists which has lasted to this day. approach to painting this group of portraits of children Little is known for definite of his artistic training but anticipates the work of the next generation of portraitists. Hone must have been apprenticed to an enamellist who would have taught him the difficult technique of John Camillus Hone became an accomplished painting portraits on enamel. From c.1740 until the 1760s miniaturist (an example of his work is in the NGI). He Hone worked as a miniaturist on enamel and in exhibited his work at the Royal Academy, London and watercolours on ivory. Hone’s reputation is as an oil the Free Society of Arts. In about 1780 he went to India painter and founder member of the Royal Academy where he lived for about ten years. He taught drawing (1768) where he exhibited up to the year of his death. in Calcutta in 1785 before returning to settle in Dublin. Hone was a difficult man and he was irritated by Sir He was appointed to the post of engraver of dies at the Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), the president of the R.A., Stamp Office. In the Hone family tradition he married his whom he satirized in his painting The Conjuror (NGI). cousin Abigail Hone, the daughter of Joseph Hone of Hone was greatly influenced by Dutch and Italian old York Street (his father’s brother) and widow of Reverend master painting. He experimented with styles of painting John Conolly of York Street. John Camillus Hone died at and approaches to portraiture in self-portraits and his house 14 Summerhill, Dublin in 1836. portraits of his large family. Hone taught his sons Horace Dr Paul Caffrey and John Camillus to paint and they both became prominent miniaturists. Hone painted a number of portraits of his son John Camillus Hone including A Boy Deliberating on his Drawing (c.1766) (Ulster Museum), A Piping Boy (1769) (National Gallery of Ireland) and The Spartan Boy (c.1775). A version of The Spartan Boy was exhibited at the Gorry Gallery in March 2007. In this group of pictures, painted 1. Martin Postle, Angels and Urchins The Fancy Picture in 18th Century by Hone during the late 1760s and 1770s, the sitters are British Art , London 1998, p. 64.

20 3. nAthAnIEL hOnE thE ELDER, R.A. (1718-84) Portrait of a Gentleman 2. hORACE hOnE A.R.A. (1754-1825) Portrait of a Lady, Signed: NH (monogram) and Dated: 1761 Signed: HH and Dated: 1777 Medium: watercolour on ivory. 3.3 x 2.8 Watercolour and gouache on ivory. 4.7 x 3.7 Framed in a gold locket case. Set in a contemporary 1770s gold locket one’s watercolour on ivory technique, which he Hdeveloped and perfected during the 1760s, is exemplified in this miniature portrait. The portrait is orace Hone was the second son of Nathaniel Hone relatively small and despite the technical difficulties of HRA. Although he was taught to paint by his father painting in watercolours on ivory this portrait is crisply he also attended the Royal Academy Schools in London executed. Hone uses minute dotted stipple in painting in 1770. He exhibited at the RA from 1772-1822 and was the grey shaded areas of the face. elected ARA in 1779. Horace Hone settled in Dorset Street, Dublin in 1782 and worked almost exclusively in Ireland until 1804. Hone had been brought to Ireland by Lady Temple when her husband was viceroy. Lady Temple was Baroness Nugent of Carlanstown in her own right in the peerage of Ireland and through her social connections in Ireland and with the backing of the vice- regal court she ensured that Hone received ample patronage. Hone was so successful that he was appointed Miniature Painter to the Prince of Wales in 1795. He had an extensive practice which was badly affected by the Act of Union when many of his fashionable patrons moved to London. He spent 1804 in Bath. For some time afterwards he lived in London, in 1. EDWARD LuttERELL (ACtIvE 1673-1724) the house of his patron, Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam Portrait of a Gentleman, of Merrion (founder of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), where he re-established himself as a Pastel on a grounded copper plate 24 x 20 miniaturist. Hone had long suffered from mental illness Signed: Lutterell fe and his decline is recorded in The Diary of Joseph Dated: 1692 Farington . He died in London and is buried in the grounds of St George’s Chapel, Bayswater Road. ccording to Strickland (1913, vol. II, p. 29) Lutterell was born in Dublin. He worked as a mezzotint This beautifully painted miniature portrait of an A engraver in London. Lutterell adopted the use of copper unknown lady is typical of Hone’s early, very neat, style. plates and developed the technique of painting pastel The portrait is built up in layers of grey watercolour portraits on small oval pieces of copper. This portrait is in which are made up of tiny parallel lines. Hone’s excellent condition and shows Lutterell’s skillful characteristic grey shading may be seen in the painting of handling of pastel in the painting of the sitter’s wig and the face. The highlights of her dress, the lace and hair are the lace at his neck. A slightly later portrait, painted in painted in gouache. This lady would have been a 1699, is in the collection of the National Gallery of member of fashionable society in London in the 1770s Ireland. with her high hairstyle and beautiful clothing. She is respectably presented wearing a fichu or fine shawl Dr Paul Caffrey covering her décolletage.

21 28. EDWIn hAYEs R.h.A., R.I (1820-1904) ‘Dordrecht on the Maas.’ Oil on Canvas, 30.5 x 51cm. Signed, also signed, inscribed and dated 1881 on reverse Exhibited: R.H.A. 1882. No. 144

25. JAMEs FRAnCIs DAnBY 1816-1875 ‘Dysart, East Coast, Scotland’ Oil on Canvas, 76 x 122cm. Signed and dated 1865 Exhibited: Royal Society of British Artists 1865. No. 596

Dysart is located on the south-east coast of Fife in Scotland. The six storey tower visible in our picture is St Serf’s Tower, all that remains of St Serf’s church which was abandoned in 1802 and largely cleared to make way for the building of a new road in 1807. The tower is considered to be one of Scotland’s finest examples of a battlemented church tower. The Dutch influenced buildings at the foot of the tower are collectively known as Pan Ha’ and have been restored in recent times by the National Trust for Scotland to a state not dissimilar to their depiction in our painting. Beyond Pan Ha’ lies the harbour and hidden by the trees, Dysart House, then a home of The Earl of Rosslyn.

22 26. BAsIL BRADLEY R.W.s. (1842-1904) ‘Interior of a Cabin, Connemara, Ireland.’ Signed and dated 1880 l.l., inscribed verso in the same hand, with title, artist’s signature and date. Oil on canvas, 37 x 57cm.

orn in Hampstead, this talented English genre the sweetness of their breath and the pleasing noyse they Bpainter specialised in landscape and sporting made in ruminating or chewing the cudd [which] would subjects, having studied at the Manchester School of lull a body to sleep as soon as the noys of a murmuring Art.[i] He was also an accomplished painter of wildlife brook and the fragrancy of a bed of roses’. The poet and farm animals. He exhibited at a number of British William Moffat later described an Irishman’s house in the galleries, most often at the Old Watercolour Society from 1720’s: 1866, where he was elected Associate and Member in ‘A House well built and with much strength, 1867 and 1881.[ii] His titles reveal that he worked in Almost two hundred feet in length… England and Scotland, the Isle of Man, New South Wales In one of th’ends he kept his cows, and more recent research has discovered some highly At th’other end he kept his spouse…’ detailed paintings from the west of Ireland. By the 1770’s, Arthur Young wrote about ‘the family lying on straw, equally partook of by cows, calves and These two oils of Irish cabin interiors, together with a pigs, though the luxury of styes is coming to Ireland , third detailing the processes of wool production (‘Irish Cabin, Spinning’) reveal the artist’s fascination with the minutiae of work in the Irish farmhouse.[iii] His paintings explain accurately what many foreigners had written about in their travel journals, yet seemed too familiar for native Irish painters to bother with. In Ireland, the ‘byre dwelling’ described the widespread custom of living beneath the same roof, in the same room as the cattle, and was long established. John Dunton, travelling through Connemara in the c17th, was initially perturbed when at night, he settled to sleep upon the floor, the cows and sheep were ushered in to sleep next to him, for fear of wolves. But soon he remarked upon Interior of a Kerry cottage c. 1840’s

23 which excludes the poor pigs from the warmth of the farmer’s marriage dowry for his daughter, along with a bodies of their master and mistress.’ By 1880, when sum of money. Behind the countryman and beautifully Bradley was painting in Connemara, poor families living framed in the doorway, we are provided a vignette of the on that coast were suffering from ‘the great calamity’ of coast of Connemara, with its rocky sea inlets. This the decline in catches of fish and shellfish. Many glimpse of the outdoors from inside the farm kitchen is households combined fishing with farming, so their reminiscent of paintings of the same decade by artists cattle were crucially important, and brought indoors for such a George W. Brownlow, James Brenan and Aloysius security as well as mutual warmth. O’Kelly, who also used such a device to augment the narrative of their paintings.[vi] Landlords who considered such arrangements primitive discouraged their tenants from bringing cows indoors, The young woman looks up as she milks. As in the c17th and in mid c19th Sligo a journalist wrote how ‘it was a Dutch genre paintings, which were the inspiration for the common thing to see three or four cows tied up inside c19th Irish scenes such as this, the actions of the people the farmer’s dwelling, whilst the pig had the run of the are mirrored and given further meaning by the way the house at all times, and was a recognised member of the artist juxtaposes the animals. So here the older woman family. The Marquess [of Sligo] will not allow this observes the activities of her daughter, just as the cow practise to be carried on.’[iv] By this time it was watches over her calf. considered sufficiently remarkable for the newspapers to In some byre dwellings there was a trench separating the publish illustrations of such arrangements (see ‘Interior animals at one end from the family quarters at the other. of a Kerry Cottage’, c.1840’s illustration). Page 23. Here the delineation is made by the bed of purple Although there is one surviving watercolour showing a heather that the cattle rest on. Details such as the unlined small cow tethered indoors, this is the first proper oil thatch of the roof, the roughly rendered walls, and the painting of the subject to come to light.[v] The fact that shawl and other clothes hanging from a beam above Bradley is painting a scene in an inhabited cabin, rather them, were all characteristic of such cabins. Both women than an outhouse, is reinforced by his inclusion of such wear homespun shawls and red petticoats which were details as the form and table, and the striped cup and dyed with madder, and were also typical clothing of the saucer, upturned plate, and jug placed upon it. On the west. In another of Bradley’s Connemara interiors, he wall hangs a griddle, that was used for cooking over the describes minutely the stages of carding, spinning and open hearth (which one would expect to have been at the winding the wool into large balls ready for weaving.[vii] other end of this room). The young woman sits to milk This was an important home industry usually done by her red and white cow (complete with impressive horns), woman, while the men generally operated the looms that and her mother sits watchfully, smoking her pipe. Far were also a feature of some Irish farmhouses. from being considered primitive, the family would have Dr Claudia Kinmonth been considered comparatively well off, especially by the visitor, who stands admiringly on the threshold, as a potential suitor. A cow was traditionally part of a strong

[i] C. Wood, Victorian Painters, Dictionary of British Art, vol. IV (Antique Collector’s Club, 1995), 65. [ii] H.L. Mallalieu, The Dictionary of British Watercolour Artists up to 1920, vol.2 (Antique Collector’s Club, 1986), 49. [iii] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig. 84. [iv] Henry Coulter (1862) quoted in C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), 46-7. [v] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig.47 shows a detailed watercolour of a county Mayo byre dwelling by Frances Livesay, dated 1875. [vi] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), figs.62, 115, 165. [vii] C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), fig. 84.

24 27. BAsIL BRADLEY R.W.s. (1842-1904) ‘Soogaun (or Straw and Hay rope) making, Connemara, Ireland.’ Signed and dated 1880, inscribed verso on canvas with title, artist’s signature and date Oil on Canvas, 37 x 57cms.

he pair to the byre dwelling image reveals the artist’s shows the girl wearing a ribbon in her hair and a crios, a Tcomplete understanding of the technique of making belt that she might have woven herself, and which hangs hay or straw rope. Commonly known as súgán, it was from her waist. These colourful narrow belts were the type of homemade rope that was important for typically made and worn on the Aran Islands off the dozens of uses such as tying down thatched rooves and Galway coast. She is stylish in her nicely cut wool jacket, haystacks against the westerly Atlantic winds, for with its fitted waist and black lines delineating the hems. binding the farmers’ legs to protect against mud, for The older women sit by the floor level hearth in the weaving into the seats of chairs,[i] for tethering animals background, observing the proceedings; attitudes which or even, when made from shredded bog timber, for are mirrored by the collie dog watching her puppy in the anchoring boats. The painting shows how a heap of hay foreground. The woman who sits with her back to the or straw is being gathered together and skilfully fed into window is wearing a brown cloak that probably covers a a continuous taut twist of rope. The young girl is keeping basket which is attached to her back. Creels (such as the the tension even on the rope while twisting it with a hook one seen inside the doorway) were used for carrying (known in some parts of Ireland as thraw hook), and she things, attached around the womens’ heads or shoulders walks backwards as the rope lengthens. Viewers of this with straw ropes or súgán. In this way women would image in the c19th might have speculated about the old have carted seaweed, fish, potatoes or turf from the bog, man being either a suitor, or her father. The ritual of and this is further suggested by the fact that she is the twisting rope was often linked to courtship, and a well only woman wearing shoes. known play ‘The Twisting of the Rope’ relates how a The cabin interior is sparsely furnished, with a wall woman who disliked her suitor, waited until he walked behind the man, which in many houses divided the backwards out of the door, and then she dropped the fireside bed from the rest of the room. The table, which rope and slammed the door to get rid of him.[ii] Once the bears the artist’s signature and date, is old and worn, and rope is made, then it is rolled back up into a ball (while there are jugs, part of a loaf of bread, and a milk pail on keeping it taut, because it is a single twist), and put aside it. In the absence of a wardrobe, clothes chest or press, ready for use. Bradley understood this process and must people often hung their clothes up on a length of rope have observed it well, because he places such a ball (again of straw) as can be seen here close to the fire, beside the man’s chair to illustrate the finished product. where they could be kept dry and clean. In both this pair of paintings, the young women wear Dr Claudia Kinmonth their red petticoats, without shoes, and have their heads uncovered as befitted unmarried women. This one

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

25 17. FRAnCIs WILLIAM tOphAM R.W.s. (1808-1877) ‘Gossips at the Holy Well’ Watercolour on paper, 30.5 x 45.5 cm. Signed and dated lower left, F.W. Topham 1874

orn in Leeds, this skilled watercolourist and genre painter visited Ireland repeatedly from the 1840’s onwards, Bfocusing on the peasantry in the Claddagh and around Connemara. Here he shows children gathering water at a well, and characteristically he uses body colour, with some scratching out on the girl’s hair in the foreground. Related titles exhibited by Topham include ‘ Gossips at a Well ’ (London, Guildhall Art Gallery), ‘ The Holy Well ’ (Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery) and ‘ At the Holy Well ’ (Glasgow Art Gallery) [i] . A father of twelve, he often favoured scenes of women and children. His work was often engraved for the Illustrated London News, and he was a member of The Artist’s Society in Clipstone Street, devoted to ‘The systematic study of veritable rustic figures from the life’ (rather than artists’ models dressed up). He also painted in Wales, Scotland and Spain, where he died in 1877. [i] C. Wright, with C. Gordon & M. Peskett Smith, British & Irish Paintings in Public Collections (Yale University Press, 2006), p.772. Dr Claudia Kinmonth

19. sAMuEL M cCLOY. (1831-1904) ‘Grand Papa’s Pet’ Watercolour on paper, 24.5 x 33.5 cm. Signed with monogram his was probably painted in Mc Cloy’s home, 117 Fernlea Road, Balham, London, and the young girl is most likely Tone of his daughters. The same interior is depicted in a painting in the Ulster Museum and the Lisburn Museum

26 20. sIR FREDERICK WILLIAM BuRtOn R.h.A. (1816-1900) ‘Elizabeth Emily Vandeleur (1807-60) (née FitzGerald) and her son Crofton Thomas Burton Vandeleur (1842-81)’, Signed with the initials: FWB Dated: 1851 Watercolour on card 66.5 x 46.5cm Provenance: by descent in the family of the sitters.

urton was born into a distinguished family who lived Bat Corofin House, County Clare. At an early age he came to Dublin to study at the Dublin Society’s schools of drawing where he was taught by Robert Lucius West and Henry Brocas senior. For the first part of his career he worked as a miniaturist in watercolours on ivory. He had been taught the technique by Samuel Lover and Burton’s style of miniature painting was greatly influenced by him. Burton’s early training in watercolour painting influenced his entire artistic life so much so that he worked entirely in this medium. Burton had a precocious talent and he first exhibited at the RHA when he was only 16. Burton was a friend of Thomas Davis, the leader of the Young Ireland movement. During the 1840s it was his aim to create a new cultural identity for Ireland and he hoped that Burton would create a new visual identity for this vision. Burton travelled extensively in Germany and eventually gave up painting when he became the director of the National Gallery, London, in 1874. There was a family connection between the Burtons and the Vandeleurs of Kilrush, County Clare. Burton delighted in painting large watercolour portraits which gave plenty of scope for capturing the details of dress and costume. In this portrait the shawl and details of the boy’s costume are beautifully handled. Elizabeth Emily Vandeleur was born the daughter of the Right Hon. Maurice FitzGerald, 18th Knight of Kerry, MP for County Kerry (1794-1831) and his wife Vandeleur was commissioned in the City of Dublin Maria, daughter of the Right Hon. David Digges La Artillery and the 12th Lancers. He married Hon. Touche of Marlay, County Dublin. In 1835 she married Maletta Yelverton, the daughter of Viscount Avonmore Crofton Thomas Croasdaile Vandeleur (d.1876) captain and Cecilia O’Keefe. They lived at Moyville, County of the 34th Regiment, of Wardenstown, County Galway and at Wardenstown, County Westmeath. He Westmeath. Their son, Crofton Thomas Burton was later High Sherriff of County Westmeath.

21. Crofton Thomas Burton Vandeleur (1842-81) Oval Watercolour on ivory 7.5 x 6.3cm Inscribed on the backing paper: Crofton T Vandeleur/ afterwards…[indistinct]/of the army…of Wardenstown Westmeath and Moyville Co. Galway Framed by Cranfield, 115 Grafton Street, Dublin. This unfinished miniature by Burton would have been painted c.1848. It was traditionally thought that by the 1840s he had abandoned miniature painting altogether for the much larger watercolour portrait. This portrait shows Burton’s debt to Samuel Lover in the loose handling of the watercolour which he floats in heavily laden brushstrokes on the ivory surface. Dr Paul Caffrey

27 23. JAMEs RIChARD MARquIs R.h.A. fl . (1853-1885) ‘Dublin Bay - and Kingstown Oil on Canvas, 30.7 x 56.3 cm. Inscribed on original label verso from Cranfield’s, 115 Grafton Street, Dublin

24. JAMEs RIChARD MARquIs R.h.A. fl . (1853-1885) ‘Estuary with Shipping’ Oil on Canvas, 30.7 x 56.3 cm. Provenance: Col. Edward James Saunderson PC,JP,DL,MP (1837-1906) By descent to S. Burdett - Coutts esq., Dorset orn at Castle Saunderson between Butlersbridge and Belturbet, Co. Cavan, the son of Col. Alexander Saunderson, BMP for Cavan and Hon. Sarah Juliana Maxwell, daughter of 6 th Baron Farnham. Having succeeded to his families Cavan estates, in 1865 he married Hon. Helena Emily de Moleyns, daughter of 3 rd Baron Ventry the same year he was elected Liberal MP for Cavan for the first time. Losing his seat in 1874, by the time he was re-elected to the seat for North Armagh in 1885 he had become a prominent Orangeman and Conserative and was elected the first leader of the newly formed Irish Unionist Party. He was to lead the party from 1885 until his death, from pneumonia, in 1906. He was noted for his uncompromising and morally exact speeches thankfully tinged with a wry sense of humour. He entered the Cavan Militia (4th battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers) in 1862, was made major in 1875, colonel in 1886 and ultimately commanded the battalion from 1891-93. In 1900 he suceeded his cousin, Lord Farnham as Lord Lieutenant of Cavan, a post he retained until his death. Privately, Col. Saunderson was a keen yachtsman, designing and racing his own yachts on Lough Erne against local opposition. A commemorative statue to Col. Saunderson was erected on Market Street, Portadown in 1910. 28 31. BARthOLOMEW COLLEs WAtKIns R.h.A. c. 1833-1891 ‘The Old Weir Bridge, Killarney’ Oil on Canvas 33.7 x 52.5cm Signed, also signed and inscribed on original label verso Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy 1862, Number 298

13. JOhn FAuLKnER R.h.A. c. 1830-1880 ‘On the Vartry, County Wicklow’ Watercolour on Paper 45.5 x 79.5cm Signed and dated 1877 also inscribed on reverse

29 Measurements in centimetres, height precedes width GALLERY I GALLERY II 16. hELEn COLvILL 1856-1953 1. EDWARD LuttRELL fl . 1673-1724 ‘From Howth Looking North East’ Illustrated page 21 Watercolour on paper 30.5 x 40 2. hORACE hOnE A.R.A. 1754-1825 Signed, also inscribed with Title Verso Illustrated page 21 Illustrated below 3. nAthAnIEL hOnE thE ELDER R.A. 1718-1784 Illustrated page 21

4. JAMEs ARthuR O’COnnOR c. 1792-1841 Illustrated page 14

5. JAMEs ARthuR O’COnnOR c. 1792-1841 Illustrated page 14

6. JAMEs ARthuR O’COnnOR c. 1792-1841 Illustrated page 14

7. JAMEs ARthuR O’COnnOR c. 1792-1841 Illustrated page 12

8. ChARLEs COLLIns died c . 1744 Illustrated page 10 17. FRAnCIs WILLIAM tOphAM R.W.s., 1808-1877

9. nAthAnIEL hOnE thE ELDER R.A. 1718-1784 Illustrated page 26 Illustrated page 20 18. ALOYsIus O’KELLY 1853 -1936

10. ChARLEs COLLIns died c . 1744 ‘An Oriental Encounter’ Illustrated page 11 Watercolour heightened with white on card 21x28 Signed and inscribed lower right, 11. JOhn MuLvAnY c. 1839-1906 Aloysius O’ Kelly, Cairo Illustrated cover and text pages 2-7

12. J.JOhnstOn InGLIs R.h.A. fl . 1885-1903 Illustrated page 15

13. JOhn FAuLKnER R.h.A c. 1830-1864 Illustrated page 29

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

15. MAtthEW JAMEs LAWLEss 1837-1864 Illustrated pages 16 - 18

O’Kelly first went to Cairo in 1883 and continued to exhibit Orientalist paintings internationally for almost 30 years. This watercolour features a musician on the right and is probably connected to the unlocated Soudanese Minstril exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1891. The musician is recognizable from an illustration by O’Kelly in the Illustrated London News (29 November 1890) which also features a ghaziya, a public dancing girl. Ghaziyas were highly disapproved of by the authorities.

30 Usually, the husband was subject to the wife; he was her 24. JAMEs RIChARD MARquIs R.h.A. fl. 1853-1885 musician, servant and procurer. Illustrated page 28 Orientalist paintings are often now understood to 25. JAMEs FRAnCIs DAnBY 1816-1875 represent the moral negative of the West, but given the occupation of Ireland by Britain, the very concept of an Illustrated page 22 Irish Orientalist is fraught with difficulty. The inclusion 26. BAsIL BRADLEY R.W.s. 1842-1904 of racist or salacious details, therefore, is very rare in Illustrated page 23 O’Kelly’s work. Apart from the rather unusual figure of the musician, the painting shows a family group going 27. BAsIL BRADLEY R.W.s. 1842-1904 about its daily business. O’Kelly tended not to paint Illustrated page 25 anything that would represent the indigenous population as debased or degraded,concentrating, as he 28. EDWIn hAYEs R.h.A. R.I. 1820-1904 does here, on the everyday prose of the city Illustrated page 22 Prof. Niamh O’Sullivan 29. JOhn FAuLKnER R.h.A. c. 1830-1880 19. sAMuEL M cCLOY 1831-1904 Illustrated page 19 Illustrated pages 26 30. EDWIn hAYEs R.h.A. R.I. 1820-1904 20. sIR FREDERICK WILLIAM BuRtOn, R.h.A. Illustrated below 1816-1900 31. BARthOLOMEW COLLEs WAtKIns R.h.A Illustrated page 27 1833-1891 21. sIR FREDERICK WILLIAM BuRtOn, R.h.A. Illustrated page 29 1816-1900 Illustrated page 27

22. hOWARD hELMICK R.B.A., 1845-1907 Illustrated page 8

23. JAMEs RIChARD MARquIs R.h.A. fl. 1853-1885 Illustrated page 28

30. EDWIn hAYEs R.h.A. R.I. 1820-1904 ‘Poolbeg Light House, Dublin Bay’ Oil on Board 12.7 x 21.6cm Signed, also signed and inscribed on original label verso

31 NOTES

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