Adam's HOMAN POTTERTON A LIFETIME OF COLLECTING 7th September 2021

33 www.adams.ie Homan Potterton | 7 th September 2021 24 STYLE OF GABRIEL BERANGER (C.1729-1817) Trim Castle, County of Meath Watercolour, 14 x 19cm (5.5 x 7.4”) Inscribed ‘Trim Castle, County of Meath from Dr. Wynn’ Provenance: With Cynthia O’Connor & Co. Ltd., Dublin. € 500 - 800 Born into a French Huguenot family who had settled in Rotterdam, Berenger followed some family members to Dublin at the age of twenty-one in 1750. His skill as a draughtsman and recorder of topographical views set him apart and his first recorded work, dated 1751, is a view of the ‘ Round Tower of St Michael le Pole ’ (RIA Collection), - a drawing of some importance as the 6th century church was demolished shortly thereafter having been adversely damaged in the great storm of 1775. Strickland notes that in 1763 he was making sketches of ruins and remarkable places and buildings in and around Dublin. He exhibited many of these drawings in the Society of Artists during the 1760s and again in the early ‘70s. In 1773 he made the first of his antiquarian tours of the country, commencing in Co. Wicklow. His skills were rec- ognised by the newly formed ‘Antiquarian Society’ who employed him to make plans and drawings of antiquities for the society. This involved Berenger in travelling throughout the country, but particularly the south-east and also Meath and Louth. He kept an itinerary illustrated with sketches and arranged them for publication in bound volumes. One of these volumes, entitled “ A Collection of Drawings of the Principal Antique Buildings of Ireland designed on the spot and collected by Gabriel Beranger ” was presented to the Royal Irish Academy by Dr Sharkey.