Adam's IRISH OLD MASTERS 5th November 2024

14 A collection of engravings by James Barry (1741-1806) 3 JAMES BARRY RA (1741-1806) Orpheus Instructing a Savage People in Theology and the Arts of Social Life Etching and engraving, Pressly 1981.17 III/III, 49.5 x 53.5cm (plate); 49 x 62.5cm (sheet) First published by James Barry 1792; 1808 impression Inscription: in plate, within the image, lower left, in reverse: “Jas Barry RA”; below image, in plate: “Painted, Engraved & Publish’d by James Barry R.A. Professor of Painting to the Royal Academy May 1, 1791” Inscribed below image in plate: “Orpheus Instructing a Savage People in Theology & Arts of Social Life / Sylvestres homine sacer –The Wood-born Race of Men when Orpheus tamd, / From Acorns and from Mutual Blood reclaim’d / This Priest divine was fabled to assuage / The Tyger’s fierceness, and the Lion’s Rage, Francis’s Horace” € 800 - 1,000 James Barry, born on 11 October 1741 in Water Lane (now Seminary Road) in Cork, was the son of John Barry, a builder, innkeeper, and coasting vessel trader. Although his father encouraged him to join the family business, Barry pursued a different path, developing his artistic skills independently by cop - ying engravings and receiving some instruction from the landscape painter John Butts. At the age of twenty, Barry enrolled as a student at the Dublin Society’s Figure Drawing School, and in 1763, he earned a premium for The Baptism of the King of Cashel by St Patrick, one of the earliest recorded paintings of an Irish historical subject. An oil sketch for this work is now part of the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland. In 1764, Barry left Ireland for London and subsequently traveled to France and Italy under the patronage of Edmund and William Burke. His artistic talent gained recognition, and in 1772 he became an associate of the Royal Acad - emy, followed by his election as a full member in 1773. By 1782, he had been appointed Professor of Painting at the Academy. One of Barry’s most significant achievements came in 1777 when he began work on a series of six monumental canvases for the Great Room at the Royal Society of Arts in London. This series, which depicts the progress of civilisation, is widely regarded as his magnum opus. After completing the six canvases in the Great Room of the Royal Society of Arts, James Barry extended his work through a series of six large engravings in 1802. These prints revisited and expanded upon the themes explored in the original paintings, delving deeper into the ideas of human progress, virtue, and divine justice. The engravings were published under the title A Series of Etchings by James Barry, Esq., from his Original and Justly Celebrated Paintings in the Great Room of the Society of Arts. Despite his early success, Barry became increasingly reclusive in his later years, and interest in his work declined. He died on 22 February 1806. His body lay in state at the Society of Arts and was later interred in the artists’ corner of St Paul’s Cathedral, a final recognition of his contribution to British art.