Lot 71: George Mounsey Atkinson (c.1830-1908) CHILDREN AT THE ROCK POOLS signed lower left and inscribed on stretcher on reverse oil on canvas 46 by

George Mounsey Atkinson (c.1830-1908) CHILDREN AT THE ROCK POOLS signed lower left and inscribed on stretcher on reverse oil on canvas 46 by 61cm., 18 by 24in. George Mounsey Atkinson was the son of the marine painter George Mounsey Atkinson and brother of Richard Peterson, Robert and Sarah Atkinson, all of whom were artists. However of all George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson's Children, the most outstanding artist was his namesake. George Mounsey, who for may yearswas Art Examiner at South Kensington, was also according to Strickland"an ardent student of Irish archaeology", contributing papers to the Journal of the Royal Society of Irish Antiquaries, and also editing the Cork architect Richard Rolt Brash's Ogham Inscribed Monuments of Gaedhil, published in London in 1879. George Mounsey died at his home in West Brompton, London, in 1908. This painting of a girl playing by the seashore is certainly by George Mounsey, although for some reason his signature has been partly obliterated. The painting dates to around 1870 and the scene is probably Cuskinny, a rocky cove on the southern coastline of Great Island, about one mile east of the town ofCobh. The girl plays by herself, improvising a toy boat from a wooden clog, while a group of boys in the background play with 'proper' toy boats. The separation between the sexes and the exclusion of the girl from the boys' game is emphasised by the difference in scale between the large figures of the girl in the foreground and the tiny figures in the background. This gives the painting a slightly surreal flavour,reminiscent of Tenniel's illustrations of Alice's adventures underground . Pictures by George Mounsey are rare and this is a fine example of a relatively unknown Irish painter of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Peter Murray Cork, May 2001