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1. John George Mulvany c. 1766-1838
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‘Carlingford Castle and Harbour from the Beach’
Oil on canvas, 106 x 152.2cm
We are grateful to the Carlingford Lough Heritage Trust, who supplied us with an archive of local historical maps and material which were invaluable to us in preparing this catalogue entry.
In 1826, a founding member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, John George Mulvany, showed two landscape paintings, Carlingford Castle and Harbour from the Beach and The Bay of Carlingford from near the Hilltown Road, at the Academy’s inaugural exhibition. Two years later, he showed Carlingford Lough, and in 1829 was represented by The Old Town of Carlingford. In 1830 he showed watercolours, including Carlingford Castle, and the following year Carlingford Abbey and Carlingford Town. Another view of Carlingford Abbey featured in the RHA’s 1834 exhibition. The records of the RHA show that over the course of almost a decade, Mulvany exhibited no less than eight views of this coastal town in county Louth, with its dramatic backdrop of mountains and lough. A long inlet of sea, with Rostrevor on the northern shore and Newry nearby, Carlingford Lough is famed for its scenic beauty. The town is on the Cooley Peninsula, on the south side of the Lough. On the north side are the mountains of Mourne. Apart from his paintings of this area, Mulvany is known for equally impressive landscape views of Howth Head, Lismore and Kilmallock. In 2008, watercolours by Mulvany were exhibited at the Gorry Gallery; these depicted the same subject matter as his landscape oil paintings.
This large oil painting of Carlingford Castle is most likely the work shown at the RHA’s 1826 exhibition. The view is taken from the Ghan Road, looking west towards Warrenpoint, and while King John’s Castle (actually built by Hugh de Lacy in 1190) has changed little, and the small beach in the foreground of the painting still survives, the rest of the town’s waterfront has been substantially changed by land reclamation. By enlarging the profile of the castle, Mulvany creates a dramatic view, one that echoes the golden landscapes of Claude Lorrain. He depicts Carlingford in the evening, with the sun setting, bathing the scene in warm light. To the left is Slieve Foye, while in the centre, the silhouette of the castle is reflected in the still waters of the lough. On the quays can be seen Taaffe’s Castle, a merchant’s house of the sixteenth century. Beside it is a dock with warehouse and crane, reflecting Carlingford’s importance as a herring fishery and trading port. In the background are domestic houses, with smoke rising from the chimneys. On the left foreshore, beside a small gabled tower, a two-masted vessel has been hauled up and propped with poles. A woman stands nearby, observing two men working on the hull. Several fishing boats are drawn up on the foreshore. Fitted with bowsprits, masts and rigging, these are relatively large vessels and would have been beached at high tide, then cambered for repairs or caulking. The lough is full of boats, and shipping. There are no steam vessels; all the boats either have sails up, or are bare-poled and riding at anchor. Mulvany has captured a picturesque—even sublime—scene, one full of topographical and historical interest, but he has also succeeded in investing the work with a sense of modernity. The figures are not primarily decorative but are engaged in unpretentious, everyday tasks. In the foreground, a woman holding a white cloth points to a large salmon in a basket, which is being held up by a boy. She may be trying to sell the fish to a group of people that includes a man, and a woman holding a child. A dog has its head raised and looks up at the child. To the right a man with a staff stands beside a horse, on which are wicker panniers and a rider. In the background two men gather up fishing nets.
Virtually the same figures appear in another Carlingford painting by Mulvany, View of Carlingford Abbey, (de Veres, 28 May 2024) including the man with the pack horse, another wearing a Balmoral bonnet cap, and a woman wearing a bonnet and carrying a wicker basket. In Mulvany’s The Entry to Rostrevor, from the Newry Road, a view showing St. Bronach’s Church, several of the same group again can be seen. The horse with wicker panniers and a man sitting side saddle is led by the man wearing the Balmoral cap. A couple are seated on a sidecar, while various other figures go about their business. However, any temptation to identify these people as local to the Carlingford area is tempered by the fact that the same figures appear in Mulvany’s View of Howth Head. At an exhibition held in February 1983 at the Cynthia O’Connor Gallery in Dublin, another of Mulvany’s Carlingford paintings was shown. That view, of Tholsel Street, a long narrow thoroughfare, shows the Tholsel Gate in the distance. As with other paintings by Mulvany, people are chatting in the foreground, while workmen carry a long plank past the ‘Mint’, a castellated building with lancet windows. In another Carlingford painting, Figures outside a Country Inn, Mulvany’s by now familiar figures and animals can be seen, along with several covered wagons drawn up outside a thatched inn.
From the eighteenth century up to the twentieth century, the Mulvany family were prominent in the world of art and architecture in Ireland. In the late eighteenth century, as related in a family history published by A. C. Mulvany in 1907, John George Mulvany and his younger brother Thomas James (1779-1845) were brought up by a Roman Catholic bishop, having been orphaned as children. Both trained as artists with the Dublin Society Drawing Schools and in 1823, both were founder members of the Royal Hibernian Academy, with Thomas being appointed first Keeper of the RHA. Thomas’s son John Skipton Mulvany was a prominent architect, designing yacht clubs, houses, railway stations and other public buildings, while in 1862 another son, George Mulvany, was appointed director of the new National Gallery of Ireland. Born around 1766, John George Mulvany studied at the Dublin Society’s Drawing Schools, where he won medals in 1782 and 1786. In 1810 he showed a landscape at the Society of Artists’ exhibition in Hawkins Street and over the years following he exhibited regularly in Dublin, showing some 42 works at the RHA, and also teaching art.
In 1813 he moved to North Richmond Street, Rutland Square, where he lived for the rest of his life. He died in 1838. While he did not depict scenes showing rural hardship or adversity, John George Mulvany’s paintings are honest, eyewitness records of the places he visited. Unlike other artists of the Romantic period, he had a modern mindset, and set out to show everyday activity in the streets and laneways of Ireland in the 1830s. He delighted in recording wide muddy streets, with horses, cattle and dogs wandering freely. He may have included the same figures in different paintings, but they are not picturesque ‘stock’ figures and instead are engaged in active conversation, commercial transactions, ship repair, gathering fishing nets and so on. In terms of their dress, appearance and social interaction, these are the people Mulvany would have encountered on his travels through Ireland. The horses in his paintings also are not decorative appurtenances, but are working animals, drawings carts or carrying panniers. Based on his own observations and sketches, Mulvany’s depictions of landscapes, towns and buildings are a valuable record of Ireland two centuries ago, and in particular his series depicting Carlingford Lough, of which this painting may be the finest, are now recognised as works of considerable significance in the history of Irish art.
Dr. Peter Murray
Price: Enquire
‘Carlingford Castle and Harbour from the Beach’
Oil on canvas, 106 x 152.2cm
We are grateful to the Carlingford Lough Heritage Trust, who supplied us with an archive of local historical maps and material which were invaluable to us in preparing this catalogue entry.
In 1826, a founding member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, John George Mulvany, showed two landscape paintings, Carlingford Castle and Harbour from the Beach and The Bay of Carlingford from near the Hilltown Road, at the Academy’s inaugural exhibition. Two years later, he showed Carlingford Lough, and in 1829 was represented by The Old Town of Carlingford. In 1830 he showed watercolours, including Carlingford Castle, and the following year Carlingford Abbey and Carlingford Town. Another view of Carlingford Abbey featured in the RHA’s 1834 exhibition. The records of the RHA show that over the course of almost a decade, Mulvany exhibited no less than eight views of this coastal town in county Louth, with its dramatic backdrop of mountains and lough. A long inlet of sea, with Rostrevor on the northern shore and Newry nearby, Carlingford Lough is famed for its scenic beauty. The town is on the Cooley Peninsula, on the south side of the Lough. On the north side are the mountains of Mourne. Apart from his paintings of this area, Mulvany is known for equally impressive landscape views of Howth Head, Lismore and Kilmallock. In 2008, watercolours by Mulvany were exhibited at the Gorry Gallery; these depicted the same subject matter as his landscape oil paintings.
This large oil painting of Carlingford Castle is most likely the work shown at the RHA’s 1826 exhibition. The view is taken from the Ghan Road, looking west towards Warrenpoint, and while King John’s Castle (actually built by Hugh de Lacy in 1190) has changed little, and the small beach in the foreground of the painting still survives, the rest of the town’s waterfront has been substantially changed by land reclamation. By enlarging the profile of the castle, Mulvany creates a dramatic view, one that echoes the golden landscapes of Claude Lorrain. He depicts Carlingford in the evening, with the sun setting, bathing the scene in warm light. To the left is Slieve Foye, while in the centre, the silhouette of the castle is reflected in the still waters of the lough. On the quays can be seen Taaffe’s Castle, a merchant’s house of the sixteenth century. Beside it is a dock with warehouse and crane, reflecting Carlingford’s importance as a herring fishery and trading port. In the background are domestic houses, with smoke rising from the chimneys. On the left foreshore, beside a small gabled tower, a two-masted vessel has been hauled up and propped with poles. A woman stands nearby, observing two men working on the hull. Several fishing boats are drawn up on the foreshore. Fitted with bowsprits, masts and rigging, these are relatively large vessels and would have been beached at high tide, then cambered for repairs or caulking. The lough is full of boats, and shipping. There are no steam vessels; all the boats either have sails up, or are bare-poled and riding at anchor. Mulvany has captured a picturesque—even sublime—scene, one full of topographical and historical interest, but he has also succeeded in investing the work with a sense of modernity. The figures are not primarily decorative but are engaged in unpretentious, everyday tasks. In the foreground, a woman holding a white cloth points to a large salmon in a basket, which is being held up by a boy. She may be trying to sell the fish to a group of people that includes a man, and a woman holding a child. A dog has its head raised and looks up at the child. To the right a man with a staff stands beside a horse, on which are wicker panniers and a rider. In the background two men gather up fishing nets.
Virtually the same figures appear in another Carlingford painting by Mulvany, View of Carlingford Abbey, (de Veres, 28 May 2024) including the man with the pack horse, another wearing a Balmoral bonnet cap, and a woman wearing a bonnet and carrying a wicker basket. In Mulvany’s The Entry to Rostrevor, from the Newry Road, a view showing St. Bronach’s Church, several of the same group again can be seen. The horse with wicker panniers and a man sitting side saddle is led by the man wearing the Balmoral cap. A couple are seated on a sidecar, while various other figures go about their business. However, any temptation to identify these people as local to the Carlingford area is tempered by the fact that the same figures appear in Mulvany’s View of Howth Head. At an exhibition held in February 1983 at the Cynthia O’Connor Gallery in Dublin, another of Mulvany’s Carlingford paintings was shown. That view, of Tholsel Street, a long narrow thoroughfare, shows the Tholsel Gate in the distance. As with other paintings by Mulvany, people are chatting in the foreground, while workmen carry a long plank past the ‘Mint’, a castellated building with lancet windows. In another Carlingford painting, Figures outside a Country Inn, Mulvany’s by now familiar figures and animals can be seen, along with several covered wagons drawn up outside a thatched inn.
From the eighteenth century up to the twentieth century, the Mulvany family were prominent in the world of art and architecture in Ireland. In the late eighteenth century, as related in a family history published by A. C. Mulvany in 1907, John George Mulvany and his younger brother Thomas James (1779-1845) were brought up by a Roman Catholic bishop, having been orphaned as children. Both trained as artists with the Dublin Society Drawing Schools and in 1823, both were founder members of the Royal Hibernian Academy, with Thomas being appointed first Keeper of the RHA. Thomas’s son John Skipton Mulvany was a prominent architect, designing yacht clubs, houses, railway stations and other public buildings, while in 1862 another son, George Mulvany, was appointed director of the new National Gallery of Ireland. Born around 1766, John George Mulvany studied at the Dublin Society’s Drawing Schools, where he won medals in 1782 and 1786. In 1810 he showed a landscape at the Society of Artists’ exhibition in Hawkins Street and over the years following he exhibited regularly in Dublin, showing some 42 works at the RHA, and also teaching art.
In 1813 he moved to North Richmond Street, Rutland Square, where he lived for the rest of his life. He died in 1838. While he did not depict scenes showing rural hardship or adversity, John George Mulvany’s paintings are honest, eyewitness records of the places he visited. Unlike other artists of the Romantic period, he had a modern mindset, and set out to show everyday activity in the streets and laneways of Ireland in the 1830s. He delighted in recording wide muddy streets, with horses, cattle and dogs wandering freely. He may have included the same figures in different paintings, but they are not picturesque ‘stock’ figures and instead are engaged in active conversation, commercial transactions, ship repair, gathering fishing nets and so on. In terms of their dress, appearance and social interaction, these are the people Mulvany would have encountered on his travels through Ireland. The horses in his paintings also are not decorative appurtenances, but are working animals, drawings carts or carrying panniers. Based on his own observations and sketches, Mulvany’s depictions of landscapes, towns and buildings are a valuable record of Ireland two centuries ago, and in particular his series depicting Carlingford Lough, of which this painting may be the finest, are now recognised as works of considerable significance in the history of Irish art.
Dr. Peter Murray