Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 1st June 2022

www.adams.ie William Ashford 1746-1824 19 All this makes the emergence from centuries of obscuri- ty of this magnificent pair of views by William Ashford of importance to the understanding of the eighteenth-century Irish landscape school and, at the same time, of immense interest for the study of the history of Dublin and, in par- ticular, its bay, port and settlements along its costal rim. The views are unique in showing Dublin Bay looking both north and south. From earliest times, long before the arrival of the Vikings, the Liffey marked a crucial dividing line, both geographic and territorial. As David Dickson writes: ‘the southern pros- pect…was across a landscape that had been settled and farmed since Neolithic times, a district particularly rich in prehistoric monuments, with the wooded Dublin / Wicklow mountains fill- ing the skyline’ . Looking in the other direction ‘the northern prospect was across the Lif fey and Tolka valleys, the borderline be- tween two of the principal kingdoms of eastern Ireland, that of the Laigin (Leinster) which lay to the south-west…and that of Brega, associated with the southern Uí Néill, with centres at Knowth and Lagore in modern County Meath’. 2 By the time that Ashford came to paint, the political land- scape had changed, however these geographical features remained a constant and his prospects north and south, in- cluding both Howth and the Wicklow mountains refuse to privilege one viewpoint – as Jones had done – and instead present Dublin Bay as a whole. By Ashford’s date the city founded by the Vikings was f lourishing and his paintings provide crucial documentary evidence for the expansion of Dublin eastwards, charting the building of a ‘ bull’ wall and recording incipient de- velopment along both north and south coasts, notably the growing settlements at Ringsend. This catalogue looks sep- arately at the history of the aesthetic appreciation of Dublin Bay and the career of William Ashford; it introduces Ash- ford’s patron here and the early history of the paintings, which were sent to London for sale very shortly after their completion. Fig. 2 Giles King (active 1732-1746) after William Jones (fl. c. 1746-47) Dublin Bay looking north, towards Howth Yale Center for British Art