William Magrath 1838-1918
In the Dairy
Watercolour on paper, 45 x 35 cm.
Signed and dated 1876
Literature: Claudia Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (New Haven and London, 2006) p. 119, ill. fig.120 Julian Campbell, ‘William Magrath’ in Nicola Figgis (ed.), Art and Architecture of Ireland, Vol. 2 (Dublin, New Haven and London, 2014) 360
The Cork-born artist William Magrath painted on both sides of the Atlantic but is best known for his depictions of the ordinary life of rural Ireland, notably in this defining image of the Irish dairy industry. After studying in the School of Art in his native city he travelled to New York but made frequent return visits home, painting particularly in counties Cork and Kerry. Reflecting this Magrath’s is represented in both the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (with nine works), and the Metropolitan Museum, New York. As he shows himself here, Magrath is an unusually precise recorder of the material cultural of rural Ireland, and he was described by John Gilbert, a contemporary Irish chronicler as ‘of the soil’. The subject of butter being churned features occasionally in Irish genre paintings as, for example, in Kitchen, West of Ireland by Aloysius O’Kelly (c. 1882, private collection) but Magrath also seems aware of the very similar images of a single young woman with her churn, produced both in pastel and print, by Jean-François Millet (1814-1875). Whether influenced by French Naturalist art (and Millet’s graphic oeuvre was certainly in circulation in New York of the 1870s) or simply by empathetic observation, Magrath imbues his subject with a monumental presence, and even nobility, while details of costume and still-life are rendered with breathtaking assurance of technique.
Claudia Kinmonth notes of this picture: ‘In the Dairy is a watercolour full of detail of the objects associated with butter-making, during a period when it was still mainly produced in numerous households on a small scale by dairymaids or ‘butter-women’ and before the widespread establishment of co-operative creameries. The small size of the woman’s barrel-shaped churn, with its shiny metal top, is indicative of a small household, probably in county Cork…In the background can be seen milk which has been put to set or settle in shallow earthenware pans with glazed insides. On the edge of the table are a shallow staved keeler, with projecting lug handles, and sets of small bowls which may have been used for cheese. Above in a recess which looks like a shuttered window, are a storm lantern and a patterned bowl. Cork was the centre of Ireland’s most important butter-producing region, and through the butter market (which survives as the Butter Museum in the city today), it exported butter throughout the world. It seems fitting that Magrath, as a native of Cork, should have painted this most detailed and inclusive picture. (Kinmonth, op. cit.)
In the Dairy
Watercolour on paper, 45 x 35 cm.
Signed and dated 1876
Literature: Claudia Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (New Haven and London, 2006) p. 119, ill. fig.120 Julian Campbell, ‘William Magrath’ in Nicola Figgis (ed.), Art and Architecture of Ireland, Vol. 2 (Dublin, New Haven and London, 2014) 360
The Cork-born artist William Magrath painted on both sides of the Atlantic but is best known for his depictions of the ordinary life of rural Ireland, notably in this defining image of the Irish dairy industry. After studying in the School of Art in his native city he travelled to New York but made frequent return visits home, painting particularly in counties Cork and Kerry. Reflecting this Magrath’s is represented in both the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (with nine works), and the Metropolitan Museum, New York. As he shows himself here, Magrath is an unusually precise recorder of the material cultural of rural Ireland, and he was described by John Gilbert, a contemporary Irish chronicler as ‘of the soil’. The subject of butter being churned features occasionally in Irish genre paintings as, for example, in Kitchen, West of Ireland by Aloysius O’Kelly (c. 1882, private collection) but Magrath also seems aware of the very similar images of a single young woman with her churn, produced both in pastel and print, by Jean-François Millet (1814-1875). Whether influenced by French Naturalist art (and Millet’s graphic oeuvre was certainly in circulation in New York of the 1870s) or simply by empathetic observation, Magrath imbues his subject with a monumental presence, and even nobility, while details of costume and still-life are rendered with breathtaking assurance of technique.
Claudia Kinmonth notes of this picture: ‘In the Dairy is a watercolour full of detail of the objects associated with butter-making, during a period when it was still mainly produced in numerous households on a small scale by dairymaids or ‘butter-women’ and before the widespread establishment of co-operative creameries. The small size of the woman’s barrel-shaped churn, with its shiny metal top, is indicative of a small household, probably in county Cork…In the background can be seen milk which has been put to set or settle in shallow earthenware pans with glazed insides. On the edge of the table are a shallow staved keeler, with projecting lug handles, and sets of small bowls which may have been used for cheese. Above in a recess which looks like a shuttered window, are a storm lantern and a patterned bowl. Cork was the centre of Ireland’s most important butter-producing region, and through the butter market (which survives as the Butter Museum in the city today), it exported butter throughout the world. It seems fitting that Magrath, as a native of Cork, should have painted this most detailed and inclusive picture. (Kinmonth, op. cit.)
In the Dairy
Watercolour on paper, 45 x 35 cm.
Signed and dated 1876
Literature: Claudia Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (New Haven and London, 2006) p. 119, ill. fig.120 Julian Campbell, ‘William Magrath’ in Nicola Figgis (ed.), Art and Architecture of Ireland, Vol. 2 (Dublin, New Haven and London, 2014) 360
The Cork-born artist William Magrath painted on both sides of the Atlantic but is best known for his depictions of the ordinary life of rural Ireland, notably in this defining image of the Irish dairy industry. After studying in the School of Art in his native city he travelled to New York but made frequent return visits home, painting particularly in counties Cork and Kerry. Reflecting this Magrath’s is represented in both the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (with nine works), and the Metropolitan Museum, New York. As he shows himself here, Magrath is an unusually precise recorder of the material cultural of rural Ireland, and he was described by John Gilbert, a contemporary Irish chronicler as ‘of the soil’. The subject of butter being churned features occasionally in Irish genre paintings as, for example, in Kitchen, West of Ireland by Aloysius O’Kelly (c. 1882, private collection) but Magrath also seems aware of the very similar images of a single young woman with her churn, produced both in pastel and print, by Jean-François Millet (1814-1875). Whether influenced by French Naturalist art (and Millet’s graphic oeuvre was certainly in circulation in New York of the 1870s) or simply by empathetic observation, Magrath imbues his subject with a monumental presence, and even nobility, while details of costume and still-life are rendered with breathtaking assurance of technique.
Claudia Kinmonth notes of this picture: ‘In the Dairy is a watercolour full of detail of the objects associated with butter-making, during a period when it was still mainly produced in numerous households on a small scale by dairymaids or ‘butter-women’ and before the widespread establishment of co-operative creameries. The small size of the woman’s barrel-shaped churn, with its shiny metal top, is indicative of a small household, probably in county Cork…In the background can be seen milk which has been put to set or settle in shallow earthenware pans with glazed insides. On the edge of the table are a shallow staved keeler, with projecting lug handles, and sets of small bowls which may have been used for cheese. Above in a recess which looks like a shuttered window, are a storm lantern and a patterned bowl. Cork was the centre of Ireland’s most important butter-producing region, and through the butter market (which survives as the Butter Museum in the city today), it exported butter throughout the world. It seems fitting that Magrath, as a native of Cork, should have painted this most detailed and inclusive picture. (Kinmonth, op. cit.)