Lot 128: Matthew James Lawless , 1837-1864 an angling party oil on canvas

inistinctly signed l.r.: Lawless oil on canvas

measurements note 40.5 by 61.5 cm.; 16 by 24 ¼ in.

Aubrey Noakes, William Frith: Extraordinary Victorian Painter, 1978, illustrated. p. 24;
The Field, 5 April 1978, illustrated. p. 594

Christie's, London, 18 October 1974, lot 95, where bought by Sir David Scott for £630

The Dublin-born painter and illustrator Matthew James Lawless showed enormous promise and was much admired, being compared to the young John Everett Millais. He had been a student at Leigh's school and a member of the Langham Sketching Club, and had contact with members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle of artists. In his early career he contributed designs for illustrations to Once a Week and Good Words.

He is perhaps best know for his work The Sick Call (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin), shown at the Royal Academy in 1863 showing a priest and attendants being rowed along a canal with a backdrop that suggests Ghent or Bruges. He was a Roman Catholic, described in Bryan's Dictionary as having been 'of peculiarly deep piety, very quiet in manner and reticent, but a well-read and most kind-hearted man'. His short career was tragically cut short when he died of consumption at the age of twenty-seven.