John Comerford
, Irish, 1770-1832
Title
Robert Emmet, (1778-1803), PatriotDatec.1803
MediumWatercolour on ivory
Dimensions
6.9 x 5.7 cm
Credit LinePresented, Mr H.L.R. Emmet, to the Irish Government, 1969. Transferred, 1970
Object numberNGI.7341
DescriptionRobert Emmet was an Irish nationalist and rebel leader. one of the leaders of the United Irishmen in the failed Rising of 23 July 1803, he was captured, tried and executed for high treason. The final lines of his famous speech from the dock on the eve of his execution show his brilliance as an orator: ‘Let no man write my epitaph …. until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character; when my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.’ John Comerford was born in Kilkenny, the son of a flax-dresser. For some years he practised as a portrait painter in Kilkenny, Waterford and Carrick-on-Suir but from around 1800 he was based in Dublin. Tradition has it that he was commissioned to paint this miniature by the Emmet family. Comerford, like James Petrie and Henry Brocas, drew Emmet while he was in the dock at Green Street Courthouse on 19 September 1803. This delicately finished likeness, based on sketches made in the court, owes much to the French Republican tradition of portraiture.
March 2016
ProvenanceBy descent, through Robert Emmet's brother Thomas Addis Emmet, to Dr Thomas Addis Emmet of New York (Emmet’s grandnephew); presented by Mr. R. Emmet to the Government of Ireland in 1969; presented to the National Gallery of Ireland by the Minister for Education on behalf of the Government, February 6th 1970.Exhibition HistoryTrove, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 3 December 2014 - 8 March 2015
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