Francis Wheatley, English, 1747-1801
Title: Fishermen beside the Salmon Leap, Leixlip, County Kildare
Date: 1782
Medium: Ink, watercolour and chalk on paper
Dimensions:
55.8 x 47 cm
Signed: lower right: FWheatley del 1782 [FW in monogram]
(Irish Watercolours and Drawings in The National Gallery of Ireland, Adrian Le Harivel, ed., 1991)
Credit Line: Purchased, 1914
Object Number: NGI.2701
DescriptionFrancis Wheatley worked in Dublin between 1779 and 1783, supposedly to escape his creditors in London. He brought a more ambitious standard of painting to the art scene in Ireland and his views of rustic life brought him great favour in Dublin. He combined his experience as a topographical artist along with his enthusiasm for figure painting to create popular picturesque views. The dramatic rock formations and overhanging trees are finely rendered in pale tones of grey and green. This section of the Liffey, about ten miles west of Dublin, was frequently drawn by artists throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The construction of a dam in the last century, as part of the national hydro-electric network, has since changed the view entirely.