Henri Chanet, French, fl.1874-1884
Title: Portrait of Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877), Novelist
Date: c.1874-1876
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
53 x 49 cm
Signed: centre left: H. Chanet
Credit Line: Presented, Mrs M. Kavanagh, 1884
Object Number: NGI.312
DescriptionThough born in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, Julia Kavanagh spent most of her life in France. She began her career as a journalist, and published her first novel, a children's book entitled The Three Natts at the age of twenty-three. She went on to publish a series of biographical essays of high moral tone about women of character such as Woman of Christianity (1852) and French Women of Letter (1862). She divided her time between London and continental Europe, but when offering to write for the Nation described herself in a letter to Charles Gavan Duffy as 'Irish by origin, birth and feeling, though not by education; but if I have lived far from Ireland she has still been as the faith and religion of my youth'. She died in Nice at the age of fifty-three, following a fall at home. This portrait is by a little-known academic artist, Henri Chanet. It was exhibited at the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy in London in 1883.
ProvenancePresented, Mrs Morgan Kavanagh, 1884
Exhibition HistoryFollowers of Fashion, Hunt Museum, Limerick; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 5 June 2008 - 5 August 2008