Sound Judgement and Pure Taste

Irish Arts Review

Sound Judgement and Pure TasteAuthor(s): Anne HodgeSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring, 2007), pp. 92-97Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25503544 .

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SOUND JUDGEMENT AND PURE TASTE

COLLECTIONS

Sound Judgement and

Pure Taste In 1869, Henry Doyle became the second Director of the

fledgling National Gallery, ANNE HODGE recalls his

initiatives in shaping the first-class collection on view today

'&&%

?fts?^wP

Browsing through the National Gallery of Ireland's

rooms today, one sees many great paintings by famous

European painters. Pictures that stand out include

Francis Danby's apocalyptic The Opening of the Sixth

Seal, Reynolds' larger than life portrait of the gorgeously dressed

Charles Coote the 1st Earl of Bellamont (Fig 7), Rembrandt's The

Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Fig 3), the moving Ecce Homo by

Titian, and Poussin's solemn masterpiece The Lamentation over

the Dead Christ. All of these paintings were purchased by the

Gallery's second director Henry Doyle over his twenty-three

year tenure, the longest in the Gallery's history.1

Henry Edward Doyle (1827-1892) was the third of the seven

children of John Doyle (1797-1868), the celebrated caricaturist

known as 'HB'. Although born in Dublin, Henry Doyle grew up in comfortable circumstances in the family home at Cambridge

Terrace, Hyde Park, London. All the Doyle children were artistic

92 I

HUSH ARTS REVIEW SPRING 2007



I HENRY JAMYN

BROOKS (1865-1925) Private View of the

Old Masters

Exhibition, Royal

Academy, London 1888

1889 oil on canvas

152.4 x 406.4cm 0

The National Portrait

Gallery, London

and were taught drawing by their father. They were regularly sent off to exhibitions at the Royal Academy and the National

Gallery and, on their return, were encouraged to produce illus

trated commentaries on pictures they admired. Richard (1824

83), known as Dicky or Dick, went on to become one of the

best-known illustrators of the weekly magazine Punch. Their

mother Marianna died in 1832. Following her death her brother

Michael Conan and his wife moved in to help look after the

young family. Conan, an art and drama critic (he wrote for the

Art Journal) was an inspirational figure. The Catholic faith, his

father, and his intellectual maternal uncle were pervasive influ

ences in Henry Doyle's life.2

Doyle seems to have been a charming individual who associ

ated with influential figures in Victorian society (Fig 2). However, as very little correspondence and no personal papers exist, we

only get tantalising hints of his character. Strickland, writing

2 (Detail showing

Henry Doyle, centre) Henry Jamyn Brooks

(1865-1925) Private

view of the Old

Masters Exhibition,

Royal Academy 1888 ?The National Portrait

Gallery, London

SPRING 2007 IRISH ARTS REVIEW j

9 3



W N

3 Rembrandt van

Run (1606-69)

Landscape with the

Rest on the Flight into Egypt 1647 oil

on panel 34 x 48cm

some twenty years after Doyle's death notes that: 'by his tact, his

good nature and his easy and pleasant manners, he made friends

wherever he went and was well known and popular in London

society.' Tellingly he goes on to say: 'He was a man who had the

knack of getting on in the world.'3 Doyle often visited Lady

Gregory both in London and at Coole Park. She wrote 'he had

much charm of manner, though he was more staid in appearance

than his brilliant brother Dicky', and mentions that the trustees

of the National Gallery, London (her husband was a trustee) favoured Doyle as a successor to the Director Sir Frederic Burton.4

As a young man, Henry Doyle provided illustrations for

Punch and later its rival Fun. Thanks to his family's connections,

he made his name as a portrait painter. Through the good offices

of his mentor, Cardinal Wiseman, he was appointed commis

sioner for Rome at the London International Exhibition of 1862, and was later made a Knight of the Order of Pius IX. From the

early 1850s Doyle spent time in Dublin. The National Library of

Ireland holds an album of photographs of portrait sketches he

made while visiting the Dublin essayist and politician, Denis

Florence McCarthy, in February 1852. These slightly naive

sketches feature Lajos Kossuth, the exiled Hungarian national

ist, the Irish antiquarian George P?trie, and prominent Catholic

figures of the day such as McCarthy, Dr James Todd and various

Archbishops. Doyle's monogram, a capital E and D divided by a

crucifix, features on two of the drawings.5

In 1866 he married Jane Ball, daughter of a notable Catholic

politician and judge, Nicholas Ball, who lived on St Stephen's Green. John Ball (his wife's brother), a geologist and politician,

under-secretary of state for the colonies under Lord

Palmerston's administration, proved a useful contact. He pro

vided introductions to people like Sir Austen Layard, the well

known diplomat, archaeologist and art-collector. In later years

Doyle often stayed at Ball's villa in Bassano, Northern Italy when he was 'hunting pictures' on the Continent. In March

1869, following the death of George Mulvany (1809-69), Henry

Doyle (aged 42) was appointed Director of the National Gallery of Ireland. Unlike the other candidates for the post Doyle did

not provide referees or a list of qualifications. His reputation

94 I

IRISH ARTS REVIEW SPRING 2007



SOUND JUDGEMENT AND PURE TASTE

COLLECTIONS

and connections seem to have been enough.

Doyle inherited a young gallery with a small

collection of pictures of mixed quality mainly

by Italian and Dutch artists. During Mulvany's tenure there was a policy of acquiring copies

after such great masters as Velasquez or

Titian: 'as it may be impossible to obtain an

example of the greatest names in the history

of art they may for years only be known to

the Irish public by the imperfect means of

copying'.6 Doyle however purchased only

pictures of quality and was not prepared to

'make do' with copies.

In 1866 the Treasury had stipulated an

annual purchase grant for pictures of ?1000.

Incredibly, that sum remained fixed for seventy

years until 1937! In his first report to the National Gallery of

Ireland's Board of Governors Doyle notes his dissatisfaction with

the paltry annual Treasury grant of ?1,000.7 He was refused any

increase by the Government of the day. Unfazed, he immediately set about organising loans of watercolours and paintings from

public and private sources to supplement the Gallery's own per

manent collection. Unable to afford any works by Turner he

requested a loan of drawings from the National Gallery, London.

John Ruskin promised his support in securing the loan. In

February 1870 Doyle reported that 'after considerable negotia

tion and correspondence' London had agreed to the loan of fifty Turner drawings for one year. These works were hung in a spe

cial 'watercolour room' on the upper floor of the Gallery.8

Doyle was a canny collector with a very good eye for a paint

ing of quality. He travelled regularly to Italy in search of paint

ings to enrich the Gallery's collection. He was often accompanied

by Viscount Powerscourt who remembered him as 'one of my

greatest friends and a delightful companion, and many a pleas

ant trip we had visiting foreign galleries and hunting for pictures'.9

Mervyn Edward Wingfield (1836-1904), 7th Viscount

Powerscourt, had been appointed to the Gallery Board in 1864, the year the building opened to the public. A wealthy member

of the aristocracy, his country seat was Powerscourt, near

Enniskerry in Wicklow. A collector and connoisseur, he was an

influential advisor to Doyle. It was Powerscourt, following a per

sonal meeting, who managed to persuade the Secretary of the

Treasury to grant the National Gallery of Ireland an extra ?1,000 in 1882. This unprecedented bending of the rules allowed Doyle to buy five pictures (including Poussin's magnificent

Lamentation) at Christie's sale of the Duke of Hamilton's

renowned collection. Doyle seems to have trusted and relied on

Powerscourt greatly. In July 1874 when Doyle was unable to

attend Landseer's studio sale due to illness, Powerscourt bid for

and successfully acquired an unfinished painting of the

Sheridan Family (NGI 139) at the very reasonable price of 170

guineas.10 In 1870 Powerscourt proposed that he would present

a complete collection of engravings after Landseer's paintings

(valued at ?700) to the Gallery, on the condition that they were

framed and exhibited. Strangely, later that year he withdrew his

offer and the Gallery never received the prints.11 The paintings

Powerscourt donated to the Gallery were minor works. He

owned a beautiful Vermeer painting Young Woman with a Water

Pitcher which he had purchased as a Metsu in 1877. Ten years later he sold the painting to an American banker to raise funds

for building works at his beloved Powerscourt Estate Doyle returned frequently to London for art sales and to visit friends

4 Pen and ink

drawing of Doyle (as a boy) viewing the

newly acquired St John and the

Lamb by Murillo.

Illustration from

Dick Doyle's Journal: A journal kept by Richard Doyle in the

year 1840. London:

Smith, Elder and Co.

1885, p91.

Courtesy of the

National Library of Ireland

5 Bartolom? esteban

Murillo (1617-82) The Infant St John

playing with a Lamb

(1618-82) oil on

canvas 61 x 44cm

Doyle inherited a young gallery with a small collection of pictures of mixed quality mainly by Italian and Dutch artists

I

9 5



^B SOUND JUDGEMENT AND PURE TASTE COLLECTIONS

6 Jean Antoine

Watteau (1684

1721) The back of a

seated Lady red

chalk and graphite on paper 14 x 9.5cm

7 Joshua Reynolds

(1723-92) Charles

Coote, 1st Ear! of

Bellamont (1738

1800) in robes of

the Order of Bath

1773-4 oil on

canvas 245 xl62cm

8 Edward Murphy

(c.1796-1841)

Paroquets oil on

canvas 85 x 61cm

and family. His nephew Arthur Conan Doyle (author of

Sherlock Holmes) was very fond of Henry's wife Jane and

remembered (as a fifteen-year old) being brought by his Uncle

Henry to the International Exhibition at the 'Crystal Palace'

during Christmas 1874-12

Doyle's first purchase for the Gallery was a painting by the

17th-century Spanish painter Murillo: The Infant St John pkrying with a Lamb (Fig 5). It was one of forty-three paintings by

'ancient masters' sold in Paris on the afternoon of 5 June 1869

at the dispersal of the Russian Count Koucheleff Besborodko's

collection. It is a lively, fresh painting full of energy and joy.

Doyle's own comment in the Gallery catalogue of 1890 notes:

'the picture is distinguished by a mellow harmony of tone which

recalls Correggio and is in perfect preservation'. Interestingly,

almost twenty years earlier, his brother Dick featured a drawing

of visitors admiring a newly acquired painting in the National

Gallery, London (Fig 4) in his humorous journal for 1840 - the

painting was another version of the infant St John with the lamb

by Murillo. u Henry Doyle began in earnest to collect works by

Irish artists and set aside a room for Irish pictures which until

this time had only been represented by a small group of gifts and

bequests. The first Irish painting he bought was a copy by Martin

jB;^ _ _J^^^-fcff- .,. -

Cregan after a painting by Reynolds Master John Crewe. Doyle

bought it from Cregan's wife for ?15. The Board Minutes record

his first comments on the collecting of Irish pictures: 'it would

be well to keep in view the future formation of a collection of the

works of native artists of eminence'. He went on to state that he

believed the Cregan picture 'worthy to form part of such a col

lection'.14 In 1871 at the sale of the late Sir Maziere Brady's col

lection (Maziere was a longstanding member of the Gallery

Board) Doyle bought the colourful parrot portrait Paroquets, by the little known Irish artist Edward Murphy (Fig 8). The Board

Minutes of 1872 record the purchase at Christie's of pictures by two eminent Irish artists, both recently dead. The Opening of the

Sixth Seal by Francis Danby (1793-1861) was bought for ?100,

while a typical genre scene by Daniel Maclise (1806-1870)

Merry Christmas at the Barons Hall, was purchased for the

incredibly high price of 550 guineas. When one remembers that

in 1870 Doyle paid ?520 at the Demidoff sale for Titian's impos

ing oil The Supper at Emmaus, the price paid for the Maclise indi

cates the high esteem in which contemporary artists were held

by the art-buying public. If Doyle had a larger grant at his dis

posal it is likely that the Gallery's collection would hold many more works by high Victorian painters. Given the prices they

fetched in the salerooms Doyle's choice of contemporary paint

ings was limited. One of the best loved and most imposing Victorian works in the Gallery's collection is Maclise's colossal

The Marriage ofStrongbow and Aoife. Powerscourt recounts how

in 1879 he and Doyle suggested that Sir Richard Wallace, a

great English collector who had recently inherited estates near

Lisburn, should be made a governor of the National Gallery's

Board.15 He was and, upon his appointment, he bought Maclise's

epic history painting for ?2,000 and promptly presented it to the

Gallery. Wallace wrote to Doyle in July of that year that 'I have

always felt that this masterly painting of our great Irish artist

ought to find a permanent home on Irish soil'.16

One of Doyle's major projects was the setting up of a

National and Historical Portrait Collection. He wrote repeat

edly to the Treasury asking for funds to enable him to buy good

pictures to build up a representative collection of portraits of

notable figures in the political, social and cultural spheres of

Irish life and history. His requests were repeatedly refused but

he continued regardless. In the first ten years of his director

ship he acquired portraits of Napper Tandy, Samuel Lover,

Henry Grattan, Sir Maziere Brady, Jonathan Swift, and the

earls of Moira, Shannon and Bellamont. An interesting mix of

establishment figures and nationalists! The last portrait he

acquired was a painting of Father Luke Wadding O.EM., then

thought to be by Ribera but now known to be a copy after the

Italian artist Carlo Maratti (1625-1713). Wadding, a native of

Waterford, was educated abroad and became a Franciscan. He

founded the College of St Isidore in Rome and wrote many books including the important history of his order, Annales

Minorumn Ordinum Franciscanorum. Happily in 2006 the

Gallery acquired the original Maratti portrait, painted around

1653 when Maratti was doing some work for the Franciscans at

St Isidore's. In 1887 Doyle managed, thanks to a donation of



?1,000 from Edward Cecil Guinness, Lord Iveagh, to buy some

200 mezzotint prints of Irish sitters at the important Chaloner

Smith Sale at Christie's.

This, surprisingly, was the only donation Iveagh (the richest

man in Ireland) gave the Gallery until he presented a portrait of

John Philpott Curran by Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1901, almost

ten years after Doyle's death. Perhaps he felt he had already done enough for the promotion of art in Ireland. In 1872 Iveagh was heavily involved in the organisation of the Dublin

International Exhibition. He bought the site, now the Iveagh

Gardens, and underwrote the exhibition against loss. During the

1880s his energies were directed into putting together art collec

tions for his grand homes at Farmleigh in Dublin, Hyde Park

Corner London, Thornhill on the Isle of Wight and Elderton

Hall, northeast of London. In a four-year period towards the end

of the 1880s Iveagh bought some 250 paintings from Agnews, more than Henry Doyle acquired by both purchase and dona

tion over his twenty-three year tenure!17

Doyle's art-historical knowledge is evident in his updated edition of Mulvany's Catalogue of Pictures. It is notable for its

scholarly and incisive entries on the paintings on display and he

refers to new research by the renowned German art historians

Dr Richter and Dr Waagen. Letters in the British Library reveal

that Doyle corresponded with the influential collector and

critic Sir Austen Layard during the 1870s and 1880s.18 Layard's

opinions were expressed in regular articles for the Quarterly

Review. Up to the 1850s it was generally held that a national

collection of paintings should primarily feature the most

admired masters. Layard argued that a National Gallery should

be representative of the development of painting across all

schools and periods. Henry Doyle espoused this view and his

acquisitions reflect this, particularly with regard to his develop ment of the Irish School.19

In a letter to Layard of March 18 1885, Doyle thanks him for

sending photographs of paintings for sale but says he cannot

consider purchasing them: 'If we had a larger fund at our dis

posal the case might be different but as this is I think likely to be

a year for bargains I think it better to keep our ?1000 for the

chances of the open market, and I am sure that this would be

still more strongly the view of my board'.20 The same year he pur

chased Titian's Ecce Homo at Christies for ?70.18. The painting had recently been published by Dr Richter as a work by Titian's

hand. Walter Armstrong21 (1850-1918), Doyle's successor, reat

tributed it to Matteo Cerezo, but it was again given to Titian in

/

One of Doyle's major projects was the setting up of a National and Historical Portrait Collection

the 1950s. Doyle made consistently excellent purchases, most of

which have retained the attribution under which he purchased them. Although Doyle did not purchase many works on paper,

those he did acquire were generally of high quality. One of his

last purchases in 1890, just a few months before he died, was of

a group of drawings from the Miss James Sale at Christie's which

included some fine 17th-century Dutch drawings and an exqui site group of studies by Watteau (Fig 6).

Doyle was a man of his time, one of the great Victorian con

noisseurs and administrators. His major legacy was the setting up

of the National Portrait Collection and the acquisition of impor tant paintings by notable European masters. Of the 245 oil paint

ings he acquired, some 90 are portraits and of the remainder one

fifth depict religious subjects. Through a combination of a long

standing love of art, sound art-historical knowledge, charm and a

bit of luck he created an interesting collection which formed a

solid core that subsequent directors have built upon.H ANNE HODGE is Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Ireland.

1 See Peter Somerville Large, 1854-2004 The Story of the National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin, 2004), for an in-depth treatment of Doyle's directorship.

2 For more information on the Doyle family see:

Rodney Engen, Richard Doyle (Catalpa Press,

Stroud, 1983. See also early family correspon dence held in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New

York, (MA 3315). 3 Walter George Strickland, A Dictionary of Irish

Artists, Dublin, 1913

4 Lady Augusta Gregory, Hugh Lane's Life and

Achievements (John Murray, London, 1921) 5 NLI PD 2041TX

6 Homan Potterton, Masterpieces from the National

Gallery of Ireland, (Dublin, 1985), p.xvii 7 Report dated May 5th 1869. (NGI Archive) 8 Notes from the Board Minutes (NGI Archive) 9 Viscount Powerscourt, A description and history of

Powerscourt, (Mitchell and Hughes, London,

1903), p. 112.

10 NGI Minutes, July 23rd, 1874. (NGI Archive) 11 NGI Minutes, April 7th , 1870. (NGI Archive) 12 John Dickson Carr, The Life of Sir Arthur Conan

Doyle, (John Murray, London, 1949), p.26. 13 Richard Doyle, A journal kept by Richard Doyle in

the Year 1840, (Smith Elder and Company, London, 1885), p.91.

14 NGI Minutes, December 3rd, 1869. (NGI Archive)

15 Viscount Powerscourt, A description and history of

Powerscourt, (Mitchell and Hughes, London,

1903), p. 114.

16 NGI Minutes, November 6th, 1879. (NGI Archive) 17 See Julius Bryant, Kenwood, London, 2003

18 British Library Add MSS 38997 - 39046.

19 John Steegman, Victorian Taste: a study of the Arts

and Architecture from 1830-1870, London, 1970

20 British Library Add MSS 39038 f 115

21 'By his sound judgement, good taste and wide

knowledge he made the collection under his

charge one of great interest.' Statement by

Armstrong in the 1914 edition of the National

Gallery's Catalogue of Pictures.

SPRING 2007 IRISH ARTS REVIEW | 9 7



Sound Judgement and Pure Taste

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