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Ireland's collectors: a historical perspective: collecting in Ireland today is often depicted solely as the pursuit by the nouveaux riches of trophy canvases by Jack B. Yeats. Yet, as William Laffan describes in this detailed analysis of contemporary Irish collectors, some remarkable and little-known collections of international significance are being formed, eclipsing even those of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy
Apollo, Sept, 2004 by William Laffan
Four landscapes by George Barret originally commissioned by Thomas Cobbe now grace the collection of eighteenth-century Irish painting formed by Kenneth Rohan at Charleville in the Wicklow mountains. The magnificence of the setting makes a perfect backdrop to the collection, particularly as many of the landscapes it houses were inspired by these very mountains. Another significant work by Barret, for example, depicts the nearby Powerscourt waterfall. Rohan was ahead of his time in his collecting habits, and was one of the first seriously to buy eighteenth century Irish paintings, an area of the market which is now fiercely competitive because of the rarity of significant works and also because advances in scholarship have led to a recognition of the international importance of the eighteenth century Irish landscape school.
Another elegant mansion, Abbey Leix, in County Laois, recently restored by a trust associated with Sir David Davies, houses a fine collection of Irish Georgian furniture as well as many important eighteenth-century Irish paintings. There are more than forty--portraits, landscapes, townscapes-hanging in the splendid drawing room alone, all by Irish painters. Robert Carver would be pleased to know that at Abbey Leix his work is prized under his own name.
The revitalisation of Irish country houses such as these has been much written about. One perhaps surprising aspect of this renaissance is the fact that several such houses, and the collections therein, are currently in a state of far greater grandeur than they were in their heyday. An inventory of 1757 of Stackallan in County Meath, drawn up when it was to be let, includes very few pictures of note--'an air of shabby grandeur enveloped the place'. (10) Today it has been transformed by Martin and Carmel Naughton and houses their fine collection of Irish art. On an even grander scale, Lyons in County Kildare has been magnificently restored by Dr Anthony Ryan and is hung with his collection, one of the most important in Ireland. Eighteenth-century works predominate (although perhaps with a greater emphasis on figurative artists such as Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Nathaniel Hone and Robert Fagan, than at Charleville or Abbey Leix). However these are interspersed with works by such artists as Sir William Orpen and Sir John Lavery, whose refined sense of elegance makes them wholly appropriate to the setting.
Lyons was built by the 2nd Lord Cloncurry, who, after a spell in the Tower of London for his republican sympathies, set off on his Grand Tour, on which he bought Roman sculpture, old master paintings and furniture with which to fill his new house. Although much of this was lost when the ship carrying it to Ireland sunk, enough made it back to fill Lyons with classical splendour. The columns which support the front portico came from Nero's Domus Aurea, while an inventory of 1854 lists 'four beautiful tables of verd-antique, two of porphery ... two magnificent ancient cups on marble tripods, the statues of Venus from the bath, Venus and Apollo, and Agrippina', among many other treasures. (11) In common with many Irish grand tourists, Cloncurry was a patron of Pompeo Batoni, who painted a series of grisailles for the house, while a Madonna by Bernini was recorded in the hall. (12) Going one better than the Cobbes, he took advice on his acquisitions from Canova, which no doubt helps explain the quality of his purchases. Unsurprisingly, given his activities with the United Irishmen, Cloncurry owned a portrait of the aristocratic rebel Lord Edward FitzGerald, painted by Hugh Douglas Hamilton. Appropriately, Dr Ryan now displays several important works by Hamilton, as well as portraits of the FitzGerald family from nearby Carton.
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