Lot 51: SAMUEL WATSON 1818-1867

inscribed l.l.:M.W., also inscribed on the stretcher DONNY BROOK FAIR/ DRAWING TAKEN ON THE SPOT BY/ SAMUEL WATSON IN 1842

oil on canvas

104 by 161cm., 41 by 63 1/2 in.

Royal Hibernian Academy, 1846, no.299.

Walter G. Strickland, Dictionary of Irish Artists, 1913, vol.II, p.509;
Seamus O'Maitin, 'The Humours of Donnybrook - Dublin's Famous Fair and its Suppression', Irish Academic Press, 1995

Donnybrook was the site of one of Ireland's most famous fairs, established by charter from King John in 1204. It was held every year between the 18th and 27th August, at Madden's Farm on the banks of the Dodder River, a spot which is now in the heart of Dublin. The fair soon became notorious for its riotous celebrations and carnival atmosphere, as well as its loose morality and excessive drinking. A fight soon became known in local slang as a 'Donnybrook'. In 1737 it was reported that 'there was a great battle at Donnybrook Fair by the Mob, who fought for the Pleasure of Fighting, in which many were wounded, some of whom their lives are despair'd of'. In the nineteenth century the fair inspired a poem.

'O ye lads that are witty from famed Dublin city,
And you that in pastimes take any delight,
To Donnybrook fly for the time's drying nigh,
When fat pigs are hunted and lean cobblers fight:
When maidens so swift run for a new shift;
Men muffled in sacks for a shirt they race there;
There jockeys well booted, and horses sure-footed,
All keep up the Humours of Donnybrook Fair'

The present work captures many of these dramatic contrasts. A group of men fight in the centre of the composition flanked on three sides by a drinking tent, a fairground, and a series of theatrical tents. The scene of Donnybrook fair inspired a number of paintings, including works by Erskine Nicol (Tate Gallery, London), Francis Wheatley and Edward Lees Glew whose picture was considered 'true in every feature to Irish life' (fig.1). These compositions bustling with domestic activity derive from the old master tradition of Teniers and Brueghel, but they also relate closely to the work of David Wilkie, R.A. who was painting in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. His paintings of Pitlessie Fair and The Village Holiday may well have influenced the work of Watson, and they certainly capture a similar energy.

The present work was painted following Watson's visit to the fair in 1842. Watson had moved to Dublin in 1836 with his brother Henry, and this work is one of his largest oils painted of Irish life.