Lot 12: William Henry Brooke ARHA (1772-1860) Ascent of

William Henry Brooke ARHA (1772-1860) Ascent of the Galtee Mountains Oil on canvas, 35.3 x 53.4 cm (14 x 21'') Signed and inscribed on artists label verso No1. Ascent of the Gaultee (Sic) Mountains/ W.H. Brooke, 17 Newman Street Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1823, no. 333 Literature: The Knight of Glin and Anne Crookshank, The Watercolours of Ireland, London, 1994, pp.95-96 (where illustrated as a lithograph) The son of the Irish history painter, Henry Brooke (1738-1806), William Henry Brooke spent much of his career in London. He is best known as an illustrator of books and periodicals alongside a successful practice as a portrait and genre painter. He was a regular exhibitor at both the Royal Academy from 1810 until 1826 and the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1827 to 1846. Based on a sketch by the antiquarian and writer, Thomas Crofton Croker, the amusing scene depicted is described in great detail in his book, Researches in the South of Ireland, London, 1824, pp.32-33. Three smartly dressed tourists, Croker himself on the left, his wife Marianne and Marianne's father, the landscape painter Francis Nicholson, all uncomfortably ensconced in a simple farmer's cart with but a few sheaves of hay to cushion the bumps of an unmade mountain track. Marianne holds on to the cart and her sketch book with a grim forbearance while the two men appear rather more nonchalant. All of this to the great amusement of the local bareback cart driver who no doubt had the double pleasure of schadenfreude and payment to boot.