Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 1st June 2022

Fig 15 William Ashford (1746-1824) Details from 1) View Dublin Bay looking north and 2) View of Gibraltar Thomas Dawson (1725-1813) who had recently (1770) been ennobled as Baron Dartrey. We know that at just this date Ashford was closely in touch with Dawson, one of the lead- ing collectors in Ireland, as in 1774 he exhibited in the Wil- liam Street show a view of his home Dawson Grove, county Monaghan (Fig. 17), which we further know from an un- published diary, to be quoted shortly, Ashford had visited in the previous year. 50 It seems reasonable to date the Dublin Bay views to the same or the following year, allowing time for them to make the journey to London in time for the auc- tion in March 1776. Thomas Dawson (Fig. 16), banker and politician, was a sophisticated patron and ‘ improver’ . He served as a Gover- nor of St Patrick’s Hospital and the Foundling Hospital in Dublin. 51 In the 1750s he had gone on the Grand Tour to Italy, where he sat for his portrait to Batoni, was included in Joshua Reynolds’s Parody of the School of Athens and commis- sioned work from Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-89), perhaps the most renowned landscape painter in Europe. 52 Cosmo- politan in outlook, he was an active builder and landscaper and in his demesne at Dawson Grove (also known as Dartrey Fig 16 English School c. 1760 Portrait of Thomas Dawson (1725-1813) courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland