Lot 65: William Guy Wall (1792-1864) A View on the Boyne

William Guy Wall (1792-1864) A View on the Boyne Oil on canvas, 72 x 92cm (28.3 x 36.25'') Signed and inscribed with title on artist's label verso Born in Dublin, Wall emigrated to America in 1818 where he established himself as a painter of some note. An original member of The National Academy of Design he became most closely associated with the Hudson River School of painting. In 1832 he returned to Dublin where both his Irish and American landscapes were initially well received but by the 1850's he was forced to return to America in search of commissions and latterly he moved to London where he died in 1875. In View on the Boyne Wall brings to bear an eye for the dramatic and sublime so redolent of The Hudson River School. The sheets of rain falling along the coast south of Drogheda sit in marked contrast to the considerably brighter foreground of the Curly Hole above the river Boyne with a workman seated by his spade conversing with a woman standing by her donkey. In the far distance the spire of Drogheda's St Peter's Church has been picked out by the artist and locates the town without imposing any sense of the urban upon the composition