Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 1 MARCH 2023

58 41 HARRY CLARKE RHA (1889 - 1931) Angel of Peace and Hope (Lloyd memorial) (1918), cartoon designed for the Church of Ireland, Killiney, County Dublin Charcoal and conté on paper, 206 x 58.5cm (81 x 23”) Provenance: From the Collection of Patrick MacEntee SC € 20,000 - 30,000 In 1918, concurrent with designing the 2-light O’Keefe memorial for the Catholic Church in Wexford town, Harry Clarke was also designing a single lancet for the Church of Ireland in Killiney. Previously thought to have been a me- morial for a young soldier who died in WWI – as was the case of Lieutenant O’Keefe’s window – it was commissioned in memory of a local solicitor, Clifford Bartholomew Lloyd (died 1915), by his widow, Edith. (1) The Lloyds lived in the dis- tinctive castellated Killiney residence, Victoria Castle (since renamed Ayesha Castle), and it is almost certain that Edith was introduced to the work of Harry Clarke by the Lloyds’ near neighbour, Lawrence (known as Larky) Waldron of Marino (since renamed Abbey Lea). Waldron was an early champion of Clarke’s stained glass and illustrations, and Clarke became a close friend and regular guest at Larky’s legendary Sunday luncheons. Clarke made a stunning se- ries of nine small stained glass panels inspired by J. M. Syn- ge’s poem Queens (1917) for the prominent bay window of Waldron’s study which was the largest reception room in the house and one can assume that Edith saw these exquisite panels and was smitten. As usual, after discussions with Mrs Lloyd and having in- spected the south-facing location for the proposed win- dow, Harry Clarke produced a small scale coloured design for Mrs Lloyd’s approval before proceeding to the full-scale monochrome cartoon. Being a single-light window, Clarke’s estimate for Mrs Lloyd’s window was considerably less than that for the 2-light O’Keefe window (£70 compared with £125), however the outcome is equally exquisite. Clarke referred to this window as both the Angel of Peace and the Angel of Hope, and his biographer, Dr Nicola Gordon Bowe, appropriately conflated the two versions so that it is now known as the Angel of Peace and Hope. Clarke and his friend, the art critic Thomas Bodkin (later director of the Na- tional Gallery), also informally referred to the Lloyd memo- rial window as Clarke’s ‘Beardsley’ window, acknowledging the likeness of the angel to the ethereal figures in profile drawn by the popular English illustrator, Aubrey Beardsley, who worked in crisp black and white. (2) Although Clarke made his stained glass windows in his fa- ther’s studio in North Frederick Street by 1918 he and his wife, the artist Margaret Crilly, had moved from the flat above the stained glass studio to a rented house on Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock; this came with a garden studio and it was here where Harry Clarke drew the Killiney cartoon between 14 and 22 November. (3) The sumptuously robed and winged angel stands on a little grassy island – possibly meant to represent Ireland – in san- dalled feet and holds a standard attached to which is Flag of the Resurrection, gently rippling in the sea breeze. The angel gazes at a haloed dove, her exquisitely fine, profiled features set against a relatively simple backdrop of a dia- mond-patterned grid, which when Clarke made the actual window would comprise of pale translucent ‘quarries’. Al- though the window is not a war memorial as such, the dove with an olive sprig in its beak may represent the prospect of peace at the end of the Great War, and indeed by the time the window itself was completed in February 1919, the war had ended. Among the border of the window’s cartoon are, in addition to abstract designs, some tiny vignettes, most but not all of which ended up in the window itself; two that did are of lighthouses, probably to represent beacons of hope – connecting with the Angel of Hope idea – but also perhaps a nod to Killiney’s coastal location. As with the Wexford cartoon, this one was selected by Dr Gordon Bowe due to its superb quality – it was in the collec- tion of David Clarke, son of the artist – for inclusion in the im- portant exhibition of Harry Clarke’s work at Trinity College’s Douglas Hyde Gallery which she organized in 1979. Dr David Caron, January 2023 1. The inscription reads that it was erected in memory of Clifford B. Lloyd who died on 27 January 1915, and although there was a soldier, Clifford H. Lloyd who fought in WWI (a nephew of the solicitor), he survived the war. 2. Nicola Gordon Bowe, Harry Clarke (monograph and catalogue of exhibition in Douglas Hyde Gallery, TCD, 1979), p. 104. 3. Ibid.