77
Important Irish Art
,
wednesday 1st October 2014 at 6pm
69
Alfred Downing Fripp RWS (1822-1895)
Interior of a Fisherman’s Cabin, Galway
Watercolour, 48 x 61.5cm (19 x 24¼”)
Signed and dated 1845
Literature : The National Library of Ireland version is illustrated in
Irish rural interiors in Art
2006 by Claudia Kinmonth Fig 24 illustrated P 24
and in
Whipping The Herring
The Crawford Gallery 2006 P180 Full page illustration P181.
Alfred Fripp was born in Bristol, and studied at the British Museum and Royal Academy School. He exhibited regularly with the Royal Watercolour
Society (where he was secretary from 1870 to 1895), at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, and eight titles at Dublin’s Royal
Hibernian Academy between 1844 and 1853. Frederick Goodall encouraged him to visit Ireland, and together with Francis William Topham and
Mark Anthony they worked together during several visits to Galway from 1844 onwards. Their focus on poor rural Irish culture has resulted in a
unique legacy of related work. Fripp visited Ireland between 1844-53 and illustrated a book on Clonmacnoise in 1846. He exhibited several works
over the years with Galway titles.
A smaller version of this work , perhaps a study as it is dated a year earlier, turned up in Christies in London in 2005 and is now in the collection of
The National Library of Ireland. It was exhibited in the Crawford Gallery Exhibition
Whipping the Herring
in 2006 where
Claudia Kinmonth draws ones attention to the empty woven basket called a skib, which was the traditional substitution for a table where
people gathered around to eat the potatoes communally with their hands as symbolic of the household’s hunger.The dresser which
normally contained the families most prized possessions is nearly empty, no pot hangs from the fire and the skib is empty which are all symbolic of
the households poverty and hunger a portent of the coming great hunger.
We acknowledge with thanks Claudia Kinmonth’s various writings on the subject of rural interiors which formed the basis of this catalogue entry.
€2,000 - 4,000
