THOMAS ROBERTS (1748-1777) Landscape with a Pool and Bridge, Horse watering Oil on wood panel, 43 x 54cm Provenance: Mess. E. Foster & Son, 54 Pall Mall, February 1907 (as by 'Julius Caesar Ibbetson, 1759-1817), Sir Drummond Cospatric Spencer-Smith (1876-1955); Sotheby's, 22 June 1979, lot 71 (as by Ibbetson); Sir Ivo Mallet (1900-1988) (as by Ibbetson); Private collection, Ireland Although painted by one of the most distinctive artists of the eighteenth century, this fine work by Thomas Roberts masqueraded for more than a century under the name of Julius Caesar Ibbetson (1759-1817) – a small but telling instance of how the important school of art that flourished in Georgian Ireland has been subsumed into, or rather appropriated by, that of a neighbouring island. Its correct attribution, only recently confirmed, can be demonstrated by a comparison with a work in the National Gallery of Ireland of very similar composition, if somewhat compromised in terms of condition (William Laffan and Brendan Roon ey, Thomas Roberts, Landscape and Patronage in 18th-Century Ireland, 2009, 380-81). In both, and a third related work, figures – or here a single woman – cross a precariously spindly bridge; trees sprout from a rocky outcrop shrouded in shadows while, on the left, the landscape opens up to the distance. There are noticeable differences, however, between this and the NGI painting. Instead of two horses at the water’s edge, in the present work Roberts introduces the rather more successful motif of a horse with a rider stopping to drink. A closely comparable motif can be found in Roberts’s View near Enniskerry, also in the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI, 4703, Laffan and Rooney, 10). The white horse is something of a Roberts trademark and here its reflection is beautifully captured in the still, mirror-like pool of water. This detail is less clearly apparent in the somewhat abraded picture in the National Gallery of Ireland. As Brendan Rooney and Nicola Figgis note of the NGI work, ‘certain details, which are recognisably Irish in character such as the ruins and the foliage, demonstrate how successfully Roberts appropriated a Continental model to suit his own particular sensibilities’ (Nicola Figgis and Brendan Rooney, Irish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, Vol. 1, 2001, 408). Part of the success of the painting, which is in noticeably well-preserved condition, is owing to its unusual support of a panel of wood rather than canvas. The lustrous surface of the panel allowed the artist to bring the composition to an exceptionally high degree of finish – some thing at which Roberts excelled. The artist availed of supports of different materials on occasion. One of his views of Belleek, County Fermanagh, is painted on the usual support of paper laid down on canvas. The picture is housed in its original carved, gilded and sanded Irish frame of a type that has been found on several other works by Roberts and which he clearly favoured. Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin describe Roberts as ‘the most brilliant’ of the Dublin School of landscape which flourished in the second half of the eighteenth-century. William Laffan in the Art and Architecture of Ireland writes ‘In the short span of his career, Roberts produced a body of consistently accomplished, gently lyrical work that justifies his description as the finest Irish landscape painter of the eighteenth century’ (AAI, 2, 435). Born in Waterford in 1748, Roberts would be dead a mere twenty-eight years later and his work is accordingly extremely rare. His father, John, was Waterford’s leading architect who designed both Catholic and Protestant cathedrals in the city, a distinction seemingly unique in Europe; his mother, Mary Sautelle, was of Huguenot descent. After a basic education in his native city, Roberts entered the Dublin Society Schools where he studied under James Mannin. He also apprenticed with George Mullins (who had Waterford connections) and, according to an early source, was ‘improved’ by Cork artist John Butts. Roberts emerges as a fully formed, and highly distinctive, artist in two works which he exhibited at the Society of Artists in Ireland in 1769: a View of Rathfarnham Castle (private collection) and the famous Frost Piece (private collection). These ambitious and confident early works, so different from the contemporary productions of, say, Robert Carver, forcibly announced the arrival of a major new talent on the Dublin scene and the removal of Carver and George Barret to London, left the Irish market for landscapes open to Roberts and his close contemporary, William Ashford. In all, over an eleven-year period up to 1777 he showed about sixty works at the William Street exhibitions. There is evidence to suggest that Roberts painted en plein air, a highly unusual approach in northern Europe at this date. Certainly, in two instances Roberts shows himself painting out-doors and the great delicacy and subtlety with which he captures the fall of light, here, and the beauty of the limpid sky, could well be explained by his precocious adoption of this unorthodox practice. Roberts was a much more advanced, and complex, landscape artist than his restrained, even understated, works at first glance might suggest. In general, his landscapes are built up with the most delicate of paint glazes, and he eschews the more robust impasto of artists such as George Barret in favour of a thin paint surface. The close relationships of friendship, family and political alliance between Roberts’s patrons is noteworthy – and it seems that Roberts was recommended from commission to commission by satisfied noble clients. This helps explain his rapid ascent to the position – while still in his twenties – of the most sought-after landscape painter in Ireland. Roberts’s art could, however, also bridge political divides and perhaps the two most pleasing works in his entire oeuvre were painted for Lord Harcourt, the Viceroy, to whom another client, Lord Charlemont, was politically opposed. Roberts brought the art of Irish demesne painting to its peak in two sets of views showing Lucan, county Dublin, and Carton, county Kildare. Although he exhibited regularly and extensively in Dublin, Roberts sent work to the London exhibitions only occasionally and, unlike Mullins or Barret, did not show at the Royal Academy. Despite this, his one professional foray outside Ireland was for the enormously prestigious commission from Sir Watkin Williams Wynn for two large landscapes to decorate the stair hall of his vast townhouse, newly built to designs by Robert Adam, in St James’s Square. Roberts was paid the sum of £53 10s for the Wynn commission on 3 April 1775, by which date he was at work on his last, and most important commission to paint the demesne of Carton, recently inherited by the 2nd Duke of Leinster. However, ill health prevented him from completing the six pictures originally planned and, in late November or December, Roberts left Ireland for the warmer climes of Lisbon where he did not survive long, dying in March 1777. Two hundred years later Michael Wynne hailed Roberts as ‘most affirmatively one of the finest landscape painters in Great Britain or Ireland’ in the third quarter of the eighteenth century (Studies, Winter, 1977). We are grateful to William Laffan and Brendan Rooney for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.
THOMAS ROBERTS (1748-1777) The Salmon Leap at Leixlip Oil on canvas, 41.5 x 61.5cm Provenance: with Cynthia O?Connor Gallery, Dublin; Private collection, Dublin Exhibited: possibly the picture exhibited at the Society of Artists in Ireland in 1772, No. 60, a View of the Salmon-Leap at Leixlip; Thomas Roberts, 1748-1777, National Gallery of Ireland, 2009, No. 38 Literature: William Laffan and Brendan Rooney, Thomas Roberts, Landscape and Patronage in Eighteenth-Century Ireland (Tralee, 2009) pp. 185-87 In the tragically short span of his career, Roberts produced a body of consistently accomplished, gently lyrical work that justifies his title of the finest Irish landscape painter of the eighteenth century (AAI, Vol. 2, p. 425). Among his exhibits in the 1772 exhibition in the Society of Artists Great Room in Dublin?s [South] William Street was an painting, very likely the present work, showing the celebrated salmon-leap at Leixlip. In the 1772 exhibition, Roberts?s picture appeared alongside three of Roberts?s views of nearby Lucan house and demesne. A landmark, just eight Irish miles from Dublin, the salmon-leap was particularly popular with day-trippers from the capital, and was recorded by several artists and writers in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Roberts?s fellow artist John O?Keefe provided the following description of the spot: It is a custom of the Dublin people to go to Leixlip, and see what is called the salmon-leap. I often went, and stood upon the bridge, looking into Lady Mazarene?s gardens, through which the Liffey runs. The rise is about twelve feet; when the salmon gets to the bottom of the cataract, it takes its tail in its mouth, gives a spring and leap, and throws itself into the upper part of the waters: in this surprising action it was only a few yards from me. When in the upper waters, it swims on, and you neither see nor know anything more about it. The landscape painter William Jones had painted the salmon-leap at Leixlip as early as 1745, and dedicated Giles Smith?s engraving after his painting to the Right Hon. William Conolly of Leixlip Castle. However, perhaps the most significant artist to have visited the landmark before Roberts was George Barret, who executed at least one fine watercolour of the salmon-leap. The beauty spot remained popular into the nineteenth century, when it was depicted with varying degrees of success and accuracy by, among others, William Howis and William Henry Bartlett. The salmon-leap was submerged in 1947 when the Leixlip dam and reservoir were built. Roberts?s view of the tumultuous cascade eschews the Claudean tradition that had exercised a profound influence over Irish landscape painters, including Roberts himself, for over a century. The composition is notably horizontal, and does not the feature the recessional planes that traditionally gave depth and balance to classical landscapes. Instead, the composition anticipates the empirical essays of nineteenth-century artists. In tone, detail and finish, however, it is typical of Roberts?s work. Indeed, it anticipates the artist?s later dramatic landscapes featuring landstorms and similar phenomena, in which Roberts explored the irresistible effects of nature. Roberts did not consider the salmon-leap at Leixlip a place to which visitors came to sit and contemplate, as they did in the artist?s views of the weir at Lucan, but rather one that inspired caution and awe in equal measure. This is communicated by the gentleman who escorts two elegant ladies by the cataract, and who points tentatively with his cane towards the water as it cascades powerfully below them. Further upstream along the path, other visitors observe from a safer distance. The stone arch on the northern bank, the sole surviving part of a bridge destroyed by floods in the 1730s, and clearly visible in all views of the salmon-leap, stands as testament to the potency of the river. The gentleman by the edge of the cascade might be the Viceroy, Lord Townshend, whose grand summer residence Leixlip Castle was situated a short distance away. Townshend leased the castle from its owners, the Conollys of Castletown from 1767 to 1772, and it may well have been for him that the building was restored and embellished. Townshend was known to ?throw open the grounds on Sundays and mingle incognito with the visitors who had driven out from Dublin to admire the Salmon Leap and take the waters at Lucan Spa?. As the late Desmond Guinness observed, engraved views of the salmon-leap executed in the eighteenth century were usually dedicated to the then occupant of the castle. The subject, like those around the Lucan demesne, provided Roberts with the opportunity to exercise his skill in describing rock and stone, foliage and, perhaps most notable, water effects. The expertly described textures, tones and patterns of this natural matter qualify Roberts finest works throughout his career. We are grateful to William Laffan and Brendan Rooney whose work on Thomas Roberts informs this catalogue note.
Thomas Roberts (1749-1778) HORSES AND DONKEYS IN WOODED LANDSCAPE oil on canvas h:21.50 w:35.50 in. Provenance: Adam's, 8 October 1987, lot 48; Cynthia O'Connor, Dublin; Private collection An almost identical painting by Roberts is in the National Gallery of Ireland. See their Illustrated Summary Catalogue of Paintings published by NGI, no. 935. A small group of works by Thomas Roberts, including the present painting, demonstrate his knowledge of the art of George Stubbs. However, as William Laffan and Brendan Rooney note in their work on the artist, works such as A Bay Horse and Two Donkeys, 'demonstrate that while Roberts was aware of contemporary development in horse painting, not least Stubbs's advances, he did not want to produce mere pastiches of successful London models. While sharing Stubbs's interest in minutiae - if not the English artist's preoccupation with anatomical exactitude - Roberts incorporated this into a distinctive style that allowed him to work to his particular strengths'. Here, the background with its meticulously observed foliage 'is resolutely a Roberts landscape'.
Thomas Roberts (1748-1778) The Weir in Lucan House, Demesne oil on canvas h:39 w:56.50 cm. Provenance: Christie's,16th March 1984, Lot 41; James Adam's, Dublin, 27th March 2002, Lot 41; Private Collection Exhibited: Thomas Roberts, 1748-1777, National Gallery of Ireland, 2010. Literature: William Laffan and Brendan Rooney, Thomas Roberts, Landscape and Patronage in Eighteenth-Century Ireland (Tralee, 2009) No. 36 pp.356-7, illustrated. In 1772 Thomas Roberts exhibited three works of the demesne of Lucan at the Society of Artists in Ireland in their purpose-built exhibition in William Street. These were among Roberts's most popular works and today a total of seven works related to the commission survive, most notably the exquisite quartet in the National Gallery of Ireland. It is not surprising that this picturesque river landscapes proved so popular. Just four years later Arthur Young, the visiting English agriculturalist, admired it, writing: 'the wood on the river, with walks through it, is exceedingly beautiful. The character of the place is that of sequestered shade.' Roberts produced two almost identical versions of the view westward, looking across the weir and featuring elegant couples ambling along the pathway by the River Liffey (National Gallery of Ireland and Private Collection, Laffan and Rooney, Nos 32 and 37). A third version of the scene, the present work, is observed from a viewpoint slightly to the left. It differs radically from the other two. Gentlemen and Ladies and have been supplanted by rustic figures resting on the bank and a drover overseeing cattle drinking from the river. It anticipates a nineteenth-century inclination to produce both 'gentrified' and 'rustic' version of individual subjects depending on the context in which each work would be viewed. (See Laffan and Rooney, Thomas Roberts, pp.183-84.)
Thomas Roberts (Waterford 1749-1778 Lisbon) A drover on horseback with cattle passing a castle on a rocky promontory oil on canvas 28.2 x 39.8cm (11 1/8 x 15 11/16in). Footnotes Provenance With P & D Colnaghi & Co., London, circa 1963
ATTRIBUTED TO THOMAS ROBERTS (1746-1824) A Wooded Landscape, with a drover and cattle, a ruined castle on a hill, a river valley in the distance Oil on canvas, 76 x 103.5cm In old gilt-wood frame Provenance: Beaulieu House, Drogheda, Co. Louth, sold by order of the Executors The attributions of Irish idealised landscapes of the 18th century gives rise to much discussion. As the note to the previous lot shows, the genre was inspired by Van der Hagen and continued through Butts and Carver. Certainly the composition of the present lot is close to Carver. However the treatment of the ruins on a crag to the left and the subtle evening light and slightly green hues to the receding central distance set off by a sheet of water is the epitome of Roberts. Even with some paint loss and over-painting of tree foliage this painting stands direct comparison with the recently re-discovered Wooded River Landscape with Figures on a Path and Monastic Ruins (see Laffan and Rooney, Two New Works by Thomas Roberts, Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies, Vol XV)
PROPERTY FROM AN AMERICAN PRIVATE COLLECTION WATERFORD 1748 - 1778 LISBON A LANDSTORM; A MOUNTAINOUS LANDSCAPE WITH TRAVELLERS ON A BRIDGE oil on canvas 78.5 by 137.8 cm.; 38 3/4 by 54 1/4 in.
Thomas Roberts (Waterford 1748-1778 Lisbon) A wooded landscape with a waterfall possibly at Powerscourt and riders on a path in the foreground, a church in the distance oil on canvas 17 x 25 in. (43.2 x 63.5 cm.)
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION WATERFORD 1748 - 1778 LISBON A WOODED RIVER LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES ON A PATH oil on canvas 99 by 137 cm.; 39 by 54 in.
Thomas Roberts (1748-1778) Mares and a foal in a wooded landscape signed and dated 'TRoberts Pinx.t Dublin 1773' (TR in monogram, lower right) oil on canvas 26½ x 38¼ in. (60 x 97 cm.)
THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN GERALD FITZGERALD'S NEGRO SERVANT HOLDING BOLD SIR WILLIAM IN A LANDSCAPE, A POODLE BESIDE GERALD FITZGERALD'S NEGRO SERVANT HOLDING BOLD SIR WILLIAM IN A LANDSCAPE, A POODLE BESIDE measurements note 63.5 by 95.5 cm., 25 by 37 1/2 in. oil on canvas PROVENANCE Commissioned by James Fitzgerald, 1st Duke of Leinster (1722-1773); By descent to William Robert Fitzgerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, his son, and thence by family descent EXHIBITED Society of Artists in Ireland, 1772, no.69 (exhibited as Portrait of bold Sir William (a Barb), an East Indian black, and a French dog, in the possession of Gerald Fitzgerald Esq); Dublin, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Exhibition of Paintings from Irish Collections, 20th May -25th August 1957, p.35, Pl.XXII; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, Irish Portraits 1660-1860, 14th August-14th October 1969, no.87 LITERATURE Michael Wynne, Studies, 1977, pp.299-308; Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, The Painters of Ireland c.1660-1920, 1978, p.129, Pl.117 George Breeze, 'Thomas Hickey in Ireland', Studies, Vol.LXXII, 1983, pp.25, 55; Michael Wynne, 'Thomas Roberts 1748-1778', Irish Arts Review Handbook, 1994, Vol.10, p.147 (illustrated); Stella Tillyard, Citizen Lord, Edward Fitzgerald 1763-1798, 1997, pp.64-65; Nicola Figgis and Brendan Rooney, Irish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, 2001, p.418 (as Thomas Sautelle Roberts); Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, Ireland's Painters 1600-1940, 2002, p.146, fig.182 NOTE Thomas Roberts was probably the most talented Irish landscape artist of the eighteenth century, and the present work shows him to have been an equally talented portraitist and horse painter. Roberts trained as an artist at the Dublin Society's School under James Mannin, and was later apprenticed to George Mullins, a well respected Irish landscape artist. He exhibited his first work at the Society of Artists in Ireland in 1766 at the age of only eighteen. He seems to have achieved instant success and continued to exhibit his paintings there until 1777. He suffered from tuberculosis, and in 1776 he travelled to Bath for a period of recuperation. Over the course of this visit, according to John Warren, his colour changed "from the most frightful cadaverous...[to] as fresh and good as his complexion was us'd to admit of" (Letter from John Warren to Andrew Caldwell, 22nd July 1776). Neverthless, the following year he died of his tuberculosis, and a marvellous artistic career was cut short. Painted in 1772 the present painting is the only horse portrait which Roberts seems to have exhibited. It is an intimate portrait of bold Sir William, a spirited pony belonging to Gerald Fitzgerald, the seventh son of James, 1st Duke of Leinster, who must have commissioned this portrait (fig.1) and his wife, Emilia Mary, daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond. Born in 1766 Gerald was six years old when this work was painted. He later served in the Royal Navy and was tragically lost at sea at the age of only twenty-two. The pony is held by a proud looking East Indian servant, and is an image of a black man of almost unique glamour in the eighteenth century. He wears richly coloured robes trimmed with ermine and golden slippers, and his costume recalls the exoticism of the East. An interest in orientalism and 'otherness' was prominent in the minds of the British public towards the end of the eighteenth century. The influence of trade routes to India and British colonisation in America had allowed portraiture of black and oriental men to become more commonplace. Reynolds for example had painted a portrait of Scyacust Ukah in 1762 (Mannings cat. no.1594). Skyacust Ukah was a Cherokee Chief who had travelled to England as part of a delegation in 1762. He was received in England with grace but also an uninhibited fascination. This interest in 'otherness' perhaps culminated in the glamorous portrait of Omai painted by Reynolds a few years later in 1776. There can be little doubt, however, that in 1772 portraits of black servants in such finery were almost unheard of. Reynolds painted two portraits of a black servant, possibly his own, circa 1770 (Mannings cat.nos. 2002 and 2003), but their dress cannot match the ermine lined costume of the servant in the present work, and until the latter part of the eighteenth century black men were usually portrayed as the negro pages who attended on their masters and mistresses. It is an acknowledgement of the sitter's obvious privilege and glamour which has led various scholars to give him an identity. He has often been identified as Tony Small, the black American who saved Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Duke of Leinster's fifth son, from the battlefield of Eutaw Springs during the American War of Independence in September 1781. Lord Fitzgerald was so grateful that he took him into his service and Tony Small remained with him thereafter. This would certainly make for a coherent narrative, and would explain why the sitter has been granted so much prominence in the portrait. However, it was Michael Wynne who identified the present painting as the work which was in the Carton Collection, and which was exhibited at the Society of Artists in Ireland in 1772. The chronology of this means that disappointingly the sitter cannot be identified as Tony Small, since he was not to appear on the battlefield of Eutaw Springs for another decade. The Dukes of Leinster were important patrons of Roberts. A few years after the present work was exhibited he painted a magnificent set of four views of Carton Park, County Kildare, for the second Duke. Few works, however, can match the mix of swagger and intimacy which the present work captures. We are grateful to Colette Jordan for her help with this catalogue note.
A wooded river landscape with travellers on a bridge, women winnowing, and a labourer by a mill in the foreground oil on canvas 16 3/4 x 20 7/8 in. (42.6 x 53.1 cm.)
A view of the weir in Lucan House Demesne, Co. Dublin, with an elegant couple seated under a tree in foreground oil on canvas 24 x 40 in. (60.9 x 101.6 cm.)
An extensive lakeside landscape, with a ruined castle on a hill, and figures loading a cart in the foreground; and A wooded river landscape with the ruined abbey of Castle Dermot, a church and an Irish Round Tower in the distance, and travellers resting beside a track in the foreground oil on canvas 19 x 26 1/2 in. (48.3 x 67.3 cm.) pair (2)
Thomas Roberts 1748-1778 a view of slane castle, the seat of lord conyngham oil on canvas 39.5 by 58.5 cm., 15 1/2 by 23 in. Slane Castle, which lies beside the River Boyne in County Meath, was originally owned by the Fleming family who had been created Lords of Slane by Edward III. Following the defeat of James II, the Flemings had their lands forfeited and in 1703 Slane was acquired by Brigadier-General Henry Conyngham. Conyngham at once set about rebuilding the castle, and an early ground plan suggests that he incorporated an early 17th century stronghold in the designs. A design for the house exists, probably by George Garret, and shows an arresting four-towered entrance (clearly visible also in Roberts's painting) and a strangely asymmetrical roof. General Conyngham was killed in action in 1706, whilst work on the house was still in progress, and the estates passed to his son Henry, later first Earl Conyngham, who had an active public career and was an enthusiastic traveller. He rarely came to Slane, but Arthur Young, who visited the castle in June 1776, noted that 'Lord Conyngham's keeping up Slane Castle, and spending great sums, though he rarely resides there, is an instance of magnificence not often met with'. On his death in 1781, Slane passed to his nephew William Burton, 2nd Earl Conyngham, who began the extensive rebuilding of Slane in 1785, to designs by James Wyatt. Another version of this composition was sold in these rooms on 2nd June 1995. Provenance: Christie's, 27th June 1958, lot 144 (as of Dartrey House by William Ashford), where bought by the father of the present owner
