Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 1st June 2022

www.adams.ie William Ashford 1746-1824 Fig 18 William Ashford (1746-1824) The combined pair of Dublin bay views as a panorama showing the joined horizon The connection between demesne landscape and Ashford’s Dublin Bay views may be even more specific, as here he seems to have borrowed a compositional trick from Roberts, his close contemporary, rival and, it is presumed, friend. It is noticeable that if the view looking south is placed on the left and the view looking north on the right the combined panorama of the two pictures meets so that the horizon joins up almost precisely (Fig. 18), even though this is a geographi- cal nonsense as it ‘links’ the Wicklow mountains to Clontarf. However, precisely this concern for a balanced compositional relationship between related works linked by a shared hori- zon – even if the locations so joined are in no way contigu- ous – has been noted in connection with the set of views of Dawson Grove that in about 1770 Thomas Roberts painted for Dawson, the patron of the Dublin Bay views. ‘The hills in the background continue precisely from one picture to the other….Roberts clearly conceived his series to be viewed en suite, with these works hung side by side’. 56 Exactly the same structural device is deployed to pleasing effect in Ashford’s Dublin Bay pictures. It is also noticeable, and can hardly be a coincidence, that both Dawson and Ashford owned views of the Bay of Naples to which Dublin was so frequently compared. Among the works of art sold from Dawson’s London house in 1827, after the death of his widow, were ‘ four views of Naples and the bay by Gabriele Ricciardelli’. 57 Ricciardelli (f l. 1745-82) is an interest- ing artist in this connection. He was a native of Naples who worked in Dublin, and so was one of relatively few qualified to judge the respective merits of the cities’ maritime attractions. Just as he painted four view of Naples and the bay for Dawson, he supplied the same number of the same subject to Dawson’s fellow grand tourist Ralph Howard, later 1st Viscount Wick- low. In Ireland, he also painted a rare view of the city from the sea, with a pendant showing the more orthodox view from the Phoenix Park. 58 It is highly suggestive of a shared link in taste between Ashford and Dawson that the artist also owned a ‘small study for the celebrated large picture, view in the bay of Naples’ by Vernet which he subsequently offered for auction at Christie’s on 25 June 1808. 59 It is difficult to resist the con- clusion that Ashford and his well-travelled and sophisticated patron, aware of the frequently made comparison of Dublin Bay and Naples, were making a claim for Dublin’s primacy in paint. As we shall see, this was not for the domestic market alone but was intended to showcase Dublin Bay’s beauties and William Ashford’s talents to an international audience.