Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 1st June 2022

www.adams.ie William Ashford 1746-1824 43 33 Saunder’s News-Letter and Daily Advertiser, 18 March 1794. 34 Royal Irish Academy, ms 24k14. 35 This picture reemerged when it was sold on 24 July 1832 at Robins, Devizes, when it was given the slightly fuller title V iew of the Bay of Dublin, looking to the southern coast, taken from the wall by the light house . Getty Provenance Index. 36 For Ashford’s antiquarian pursuits see Peter Harbison, ‘Our first president, William Ashford, as antiquarian artist’, Royal Hibernian Academy, one hundred and seventy-third exhibition (Dublin, 2003) pp. 24-26 and Peter Harbison, ‘William Ashford’s drawings of Timoleague abbey’, Journal of the Cork historical and archaeological society , vol. 112 (2007) pp. 1-5. 37 Walter Strickland, A dictionary of Irish artists, 2 vols (Dublin and London, 1913) vol. i, p. 9. 38 Thomas J. Mulvany (ed), The life of James Gandon, esq.,…with original notices of contemporary artists, and fragments of essays from material collected and arranged by his son, James Gandon, esq .,… (Dublin, 1846) p. 142. 39 ibid . Crookshank, A life devoted to landscape , p. 121. 40 Figgis and Rooney, Irish paintings , p. 33. 41 Dublin Evening Post for 29 May 1788, cited Figgis, ‘William Ashford’, p. 158. 42 Morgan, The Wild Irish Girl , p. 14. 43 Plumptre, Narrative , p. 1. 44 Royal Irish Academy, ms 24k14. 45 ‘A Tour from London to Dublin’, p. 17. 46 A digitized copy of the catalogue is available on the Getty Research Portal, http://portal.getty.edu/books/frick_1145341631. 47 Hibernian Journal , 29 May 1775, the review was signed with initials ‘B.J.’ In 1775 Ashford also exhibited three views of Moore Abbey which were less favourably reviewed, see Fleming, Kenny and Laffan, Exhibiting art in Georgian Ireland , pp. 62-64. 48 For this picture see Fleming, Kenny and Laffan, Exhibiting art in Georgian Ireland , pp. 65-66 and 100-01. 49 Mulvany, Life of James Gandon , p. 141. For Roberts and his clients see Laffan and Rooney, Thomas Roberts , 208-12. 50 This was engraved by B. T. Powney see William Laffan (ed.), Painting Ireland, topographical views from Glin Castle , (Tralee, 2006) pp. 156-59. For Dawson as a patron see Kevin V. Mulligan, ‘Et in arcadia ego’, Irish arts review, vol 33, no. 4 (Winter 2016), pp 578-83. For a list of Ashford’s Society of Artists’ exhibits see Fleming, Kenny and Laffan, Exhibiting art in Georgian Ireland , p. 222. 51 See Mary Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish parliament, 1692-1800, commons, constituencies and statutes , 6 vols (Belfast, 2002) vol. iv, pp. 30-31. 52 See John Ingamells, A dictionary of British and Irish travellers in Italy, 1701-1800 (New Haven and London, 1997) p. 285. For the Parody of the School of Athens see Cynthia O’Connor, ‘The Parody of the School of Athens’, Bulletin of the Irish Georgian Society , vol. 26 (1983) pp. 4-22. Vernet was popular with Irish Grand Tourists – his ‘Times of the Day’ famously grace the Drawing Room at Russborough – and he also produced work for Lord Charlemont, Ralph Howard, later 1st Earl of Wicklow and Joseph Henry of Straffan. It is suggestive but probably coincidental that Vernet’s wife, Virginia Cecilia Parker, though born in Rome (in 1728) was of Irish extraction. 53 See Laffan and Rooney, Thomas Roberts , pp. 90-109. 54 ibid ., p. 107. 55 Diary of a journey through England and Wales to Ireland made by Rev. J. Burrows, 1773 , National Library of Ireland, ms 23.561. 56 Laffan and Rooney, Thomas Roberts , p. 100. 57 Mulligan, ‘Et in arcadia ego’ p. 583, n. 2. 58 Anne Crookshank and Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin, Ireland’s Painters, 1600-1940 (New Haven and London, 2002/2007) pp. 77-78. Prints after these views were advertised, but seem never to have been executed. Faulkner’s Dublin Journal , 7-11 March 1758: ‘Proposals for engraving on copper-plate, two view of the city of Dublin, one from the sea and the other from the Phoenix-park both engraved from the original pictures by Signor Gabriele Ricciar- delli…both of which are to be engraved by the best hand in London and each print to be 3 feet long and 1.5 foot high. The original pictures are to be seen at Signor Gabriele Ricciardelli’s or at Mr. Henderson's seed shop at the corner of Capel Street where subscriptions are taken’. 59 Getty Provenance Index. 60 Christie’s archivist has concluded that this is a list of sellers not buyers (private correspondence). No prices are listed as, almost universally, is the norm with a list of buyers at a sale. This is supported by the fact that the advertised seller, Robert Alexander’s, name is included as ‘Alex’. 61 Kenneth Garlick and Angus Macintyre (eds), The diary of Joseph Farington , vol. vi (New Haven and London 1979) p. 2257. 62 Figgis, ‘William Ashford’, p. 158. 63 Getty Provenance Index. 64 Faulkner’s Dublin Journal , 28 Dec 1742-1 Jan 1743 see Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin and William Laffan, ‘Michael Ford’s portrait of Lord Chief Justice Henry Singleton’, Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies , vol. ix (2006) p. 268. 65 Ronald W. Lightbown, An architect earl, Edward Augustus Stratford (1736-1801), 2nd earl of Aldborough (Thomastown, 2008) p. 105. 66 The sale followed on from Ashford’s first exhibit of a work in London, at the Royal Academy of 1775. A couple of months after the auction he had a further work included in the 1776 Academy, while the following year Ashford first exhibited a work at the Society of Artists in London. 67 Strickland, Dictionary , vol. ii, p 9. 68 A Christie’s stenciled stock number (499X) on the stretcher links the pictures to the 1887 sale. 69 In his discussion of James Arthur O’Connor’s exquisite view of Irishtown (1823, private collection), which shows the South Wall from the opposite view from that which appears in Ashford’s view, Brendan Rooney lists some eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artists, subsequent to Ashford, who paint- ed the bay, ‘both panoramic views…and scenes of specific locations along its north and south shores’. These include John Henry Campbell (1755-1828), Thomas Sautelle Roberts (1760-1826) and Francis Danby (1793-1861). See Brendan Rooney in William Laffan (ed.), The sublime and the beautiful, Irish art 1700-1830 , exhibition catalogue, Pyms Gallery (London, 2001) 158-69.