George Barret c.1732-1784

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A Classical Landscape with Figures and Classical Ruins Based on the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli

Oil on canvas, 83 x 116.5 cm.

Unlike his great rival Richard Wilson, George Barret never travelled to Italy, nevertheless the classical world pervades his work, often, as here, in harmonious conjunction with an atmospheric evocation of the Irish landscape. In a painting commissioned by the Taylors of Headfort (private collection, Gorry Gallery), he introduced the late antique Tempietto at Clitumno, as depicted by Piranesi. Similarly here, at the centre of a lush landscape more redolent of the verdure of his native land than the sunbaked terrain of the campagna, he depicts a circular building which is clearly based on the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. One of the most famous vestiges of classical antiquity, the much-imitated structure, also known as the Temple of the Sibyl, had been built in the 1st century B.C.. Such was its appeal that Frederick Hervey, Bishop of Derry (and Earl of Bristol) had attempted to buy the temple and bring it to Ireland, but this was vetoed by the Pope and instead the Earl-Bishop built at imitation, the Mussenden Temple, overlooking the Derry coast at Downhill.

Barret had first painted the Temple of Vesta motif in a landscape intended for the Library at Russborough, County Wicklow, where he copied a small gouache by Giovanni Battista Busiri. Here, however, some years later, Barret has attained his own mature – and very recognisable – style, and creates a work of great appeal, playfully adopting his source by placing the temple on a much less pronounced eminence and adding oversized pieces of classical sculpture on pedestals which can be glimpsed within the temple.

In the years immediately preceding his departure for London in about 1763, Barret seems to have been exceptionally busy which rather contradicts Strickland’s assertion, paraphrasing Gilbert, that the artist left Dublin for London as he was ‘finding little encouragement in his art’. Certainly, London offered wider scope for patronage and greater opportunity to study the work of Claude and other old masters, but this is not to say that Barret was lacking commissions, or inspiration, at home. As Barret signs his landscapes only very rarely, and dates pictures even less frequently, it has been difficult hitherto to define precisely his Irish work and distinguish it from that produced in England. However, an analysis of his oeuvre clearly indicates that he produced some of his finest paintings not in the cosmopolitan capital, with the all the opportunities that it offered, but in Dublin. Anne Crookshank and the Knight and Glin noted this early precocity, writing how his early work ‘established that he was already a completely developed painter before he came to London’.

A relatively complete chronology for Barret’s work in Ireland can in fact be pieced together, from the occasional signed work and other documentary evidence. His first dated picture is from 1747 (private collection), the lack of sophistication of which indicates that it is a student production and in this year Barret was awarded a premium from the Dublin Society Schools. The comparative immaturity of the 1747 picture may, incidentally, be taken as evidence in support of 1732 as Barret’s date of birth, rather than 1728 as is sometimes given. By about 1750, he had received the important commission from Joseph Leeson, already mentioned, to copy some works by Busiri which Leeson had purchased on his Grand Tour and to supplement these with a group of original landscapes to dec- orate the Library (now the Dining Room) at Russborough.

It is, however, in the second half of the 1750s that Barret refined his personal style. Two dated landscapes are important here. The first, at Farmleigh, is dated 1755, and has been well characterised as being in the manner of Zuccarelli. A second, published by Michael Wynne, is also dated in the 1750s, however, the last digit of the date is illegible. In these landscapes several of the recurring structural characteristics of Barret’s art are present and a series of impressive pictures may be grouped around them. These share many of the same compositional devices, several of which are also present here: a dominating tree on the left of the composition; water – a lake, river or cascade – in the centre, or just to the right of centre; and a distant view to blue mountains which blends into the sky. All this is enlivened by diminutive figures, often dressed in blue and red, which evolve from rococo-Italianate to more substantial fishermen or travellers. In the present work, as often, Barret is particularly adept in the treatment of the recession into the distance, playing confidently with strategically placed architectural elements which combine successfully with subtly handled aerial perspective.

In addition to his work at Russborough, during his time in Ireland Barret won patronage from Lord Powerscourt and the Conollys of Castletown. The artist features in a letter of 7 December 1762 from Emily FitzGerald to Lord Kildare. Also in 1762, the year that Barret was working at Castletown, where he is recorded in Lord Powerscourt’s company, he was actively engaged in painting Powerscourt’s famous Wicklow demesne. He advertised, ailseeking subscriptions for engravings after four of his Powerscourt landscapes ‘which were to be scraped, under his direction by John Dixon of Dublin’. The four views were to include; Powerscourt House and the Adjacent Country; A View in the Dargle called the Castle Rock; A View of the Dargle and The Waterfall in Powerscourt Park, however, the project was never realised. Gilbert records the relationship between Powerscourt and Barret ‘who in early life passed much of his time at this nobleman’s demesne in the county of Wicklow, the scenery of which formed the subject of many of his paintings.’ Several of Barret’s painted views of Powerscourt survive, at least two of Powerscourt House and four of the famous waterfall, including the well-known work in the National Gallery of Ireland. These can all be dated with some certainty to the very early 1760s. The present work is clearly dateable to after the Russborough commission and the dated works of the mid-1750s but before the Powerscourt Waterfall pictures, perhaps circa 1758-60. It is a characteristic and very appealing example of Barret’s art and a very welcome addition to his Irish period oeuvre.

We thank William Laffan and Logan Morse for their assistance in cataloguing this work.

The frame on this picture is a fine French carved oak example, dating to the early to mid eighteenth-century. The scrolling foliate ornamentation at corners and centres spreads outward from cartouches which project very little from the contours of the frame, and the style of the cartouches and foliage is very much in-keeping with the interior boiserie carvings of the period. These are positioned between a leaf-and-tongue sight, a sanded band and a plain knull, dropping to a plain outer band. The cartouches are not over emphasised, and the overall design of the frame does not highlight the individual parts - a later tendency. French frames were generally carved in oak, which made them far more resilient than their English/Irish counterparts. This particular frame was originally completely water gilded; the present gilded surface dates to the later eighteenth-century, still employing the traditional red Armenian bole as a base but applied with an oil gilding technique.

Susan Mulhall