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Tuesday 11th October
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280 ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN BUTTS(c.1728 -1765)
An extensive river landscape with cattle and sheep and droves, a distant town and hillside castle
Oil on canvas, 81 x 102cm
The reverse bearing an old label “Landscape by Butts”
€ 10,000 - 15,000
John Butts (c.1728 -1765) was an Irish landscape painter who originated from Cork, producing a large body of work based on his local
environment, such as the work in the Crawford Art Gallery attributed to him,
View of Cork from Audley Place (
c.1750). It was a source
of creative as well economic sustenance for Butts who trained artists in the city, his pupils including Nathaniel Grogan the Elder and
James Barry. As one of the earliest recorded painters in Ireland, Butts was acutely aware of the great landscape tradition which had
been established a century earlier by artists in Italy. His large-scale and ambitious landscapes are filled with iconography deployed
to create an Arcadian tableau. With this present example it reflects Butts’ tendency to populate the scene with staffage figures which
offset the dramatic sheer cliff face behind. Atop of this sits a fortress of classical architectural buildings that stretch out and eventually
fade into the hazy distance of the horizon.
Butts left his native Cork for Dublin in 1757, but this would prove to be an unsuccessful move. By this time married with a large family,
Butts tried hard to generate extra income but unable to get commissions, he had to revert to sign painting or producing copies after
other artists. Signed works by Butts are very rare and there are none in any Irish municipal collections. Despite occasional assistance
- in 1763 the Dublin Society paid six guineas for one of his landscapes - he died young and impoverished in 1765.