ADAM'S - Important Irish Art Auction - 31st May 2017 (Click Lot title for more images and to Place Bid)

Oil on lined canvas, 72 x 61cm (28¼ x 24’’)

Provenance: From the Collection of the late Gillian Bowler.

Although originally catalogued by Christie’s in May 1989 as being by Augustus Burke, this unsigned painting

features the same girl, probably in the same kitchen, as O’Kelly’s unfinished

Kitchen, West of Ireland

, painted in the

early 1880s, the seated woman, barely blocked-in in the latter, being perhaps the older woman in this painting. At

the time, O’Kelly was living in Lugnanaugh in a cottage nestled below Maol Chnoc or Garraun Mountain which rises

above Lough Fee on the Kylemore estate of Mitchell Henry, the Home Rule MP. On his departure in 1884, O’Kelly

left behind many unfinished works.

Burke was in the west of Ireland around the same time as O’Kelly, but the subject, location and style would indicate

that O’Kelly was the artist. The painting is probably a preliminary sketch for a larger work. The older woman in

mid conversation, and the younger immersed in her own sad thoughts, suggest a narrative, not evident in this

fragment.

(See Niamh O’Sullivan, Aloysius O’Kelly: Art, Nation, Empire, Field Day, 2010.)

Niamh O’Sullivan May 2017

€ 2,000 - 4,000