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