Notes
The present painting is similar to a work of the same title which was exhibited at the Gorry Gallery in 'An Exhibition of 18th - 21st Century Irish Paintings' 20 May to 2 June 2012, catalogue no. 1.
The 'journalistic' impulse which has been detected in Sadler's art drew him to record topical events such as the burning of the Royal Arcade, College Green, and he has been well characterised as a chronicler of early nineteenth century Dublin: 'Dublin was his quarry and his…paintings…record its life. (1) It is then not surprising that one of the most newsworthy events to occur in Dublin during his lifetime should have attracted his brush, the visit, in 1821, of King George IV. This was, after all, the first visit of an English monarch to Ireland since William III had landed, in very different circumstances, at Carrickfergus a hundred and thirty years earlier. The significance of the occasion can be gauged by a comparison with the excitement caused by the 2011 visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland. George's visit was a similarly historic event.
The king's brief stay in Ireland was perceived to have been a success - despite George's best efforts. He had arrived famously drunk and suspicions persisted that the main purpose of his trip was to spend time with his mistress, Lady Conyngham, at Slane Castle. One contemporary verse mocked the notoriously obese lovers: 'Quaffing their claret, then mingling their lips, or tickling the fat above each other's hips'. More seriously, the king, on his accession, had turned his back on his liberal past. Once the friend of Sheridan, he was now an implacable opponent of Catholic Emancipation. Nevertheless, Daniel O'Connell found it politic to present the king with a laurel crown on his departure - shortly before the moment that Sadler chooses to depict - and the king 'took particular notice of this distinguished personage, shook him cordially by the hand, and accepted the tribute'. Sadler managed to convey both the goodwill that was, in general, shown to the king but also the tensions which underpinned the visit. There is a noticeable contrast between the surging crowd of Dubliners and the serried ranks of soldiers who prevent them getting too close to the action. Meanwhile, in the foreground policemen draw truncheons to deal with protesters, or perhaps just pickpockets.
Sadler was far from alone in painting the pomp and circumstance of the visit. The landing of the king at Howth was the subject of an enormous oil by James Dowling Herbert (private collection) which was exhibited both at the Royal Academy and RHA; the symbolic entry into the city at the top of Sackville Street was painted by both William Turner de Lond and Joseph Haverty while de Lond also produced a vigorous sketch of the moment at which the royal processions passed the politically-charged site of the former Houses of Parliament on College Green. (2) In this later work the tensions of the visit are again apparent: 'mounted soldiers mingle with the crowd…swords are held unsheathed, bayonets fixed'. (3) Memories of the Regency Crisis, when Grattan's parliament had acted as a kingmaker in George's favour, were inevitably to the fore and both Sadler and Turner de Lond were alive to the ambiguities of the occasion.
The momentous nature of the visit combined with the competition from his artistic peers, and perhaps, a proprietary feeling that he was the painter of Dublin - that this was his subject - led Sadler to produce an extraordinary work of immense ambition and scope. Several hundred figures can be seen in the present painting.
It was quite possible that Sadler also had hopes of royal patronage which led him to excel himself. Haverty's picture, now hanging, appropriately, in the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, was, according to Strickland, commissioned by the King himself, but was rejected as it did not give sufficient prominence to the royal presence. This is not a fault that can be attributed to Sadler's work which shows a mastery of the difficult task of balancing overall composition with detail and, crucially giving due attention to the departing monarch. The figure of the king is no bigger than many of the others but Sadler shows his dexterity in nevertheless making it instantly recognisable as George.
The only other work of comparable ambition is his, now famous, portrayal of the Battle of Waterloo (private collection). Also on canvas - rather than mahogany panel which he preferred for his small pictures - and measuring 81 by 177 cms, it is an equally accomplished piece of painting and the works share similar structural dynamics, such as the use of plumes of smoke to add a sense of variety to the composition. To an extent Sadler grafts the very specific subject matter of the departure of George onto a pre-existing Irish tradition of crowd scenes. There are similarities, with both Turner de Lond's View of Ennis (1820, private collection) and Joseph Peacock's Pattern at Glendalough, 1813, Ulster Museum). But here Sadler is even more inventive in shaping the contrasting attitude of his figures. The sharpness of his technique combines with highlights of white impasto from a loaded brush to give a rippling, almost 3-D, effect of movement to the canvas. Crookshank and Glin noted that the correct identification of the Waterloo picture had changed 'our whole concept of his painting'. (4) Sadler is now coming to be seen as a more substantial and complex artist than previously thought.
In another context Dr Brendan Rooney describes Sadler's pictures as offering a microcosm of society: 'merchants, soldiers, sailors, tradesmen, mothers and children'. He is the painter of the everyday, of the quotidian, whose eye is caught by the humdrum anecdotal detail that would be passed by other artists. Sadler's is an all-encompassing - and very humane - vision of society. Taken as a whole his oeuvre documents Dublin of the early decades of the nineteenth century, its architecture, topography, vehicles, costumes, manners and mores. James Joyce once suggested that his Dublin of a century later could be reconstructed from his books, much the same can be said of Sadler's art which evokes Regency Dublin in all its splendour and corruption and this set piece occasion, when all classes, from gentry to beggars, are assembled, gives a magnificent panoramic view of Dunleary's Harbour 1821. (5)
We are grateful to the Gorry Gallery for their kind permission to reproduce their catalogue entry from their 2012 exhibition.
Footnotes:
1. Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, Ireland's painters (New Haven and London, 2002) p. 195; Brendan Rooney, Sadler's Wall (Bathesda, Maryland, 2004) pp. 8 & 1.
2. For the subject generally see William Laffan (ed.), Painting Ireland, Topographical Views from Glin Castle (Tralee, 2006) pp. 190-97.
3. Ibid.
4. op. cit.
5. Renamed Kingstown to commemorate King George IV's departure.
