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George Barret , Irish, 1728/32-1784

Title

An Italianate Wooded River Landscape with Figures

Date1755

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions

110.5 x 136.5 cm

Signedlower right: GB[linked]arret 1755

Credit LineHeritage Gift, 2001

Object numberNGI.4697

DescriptionBarret has left a series of substantial canvases from the 1750s, indicating a steady supply of patronage before he left Ireland. This, usefully dated, example is a rare instance of his working in the style of fashionable Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-1788), whose first visit to London was from 1752. He takes a favourite subject of a river and rocks, portrayed with a sense of warm summer light and luminosity, which is a considerable advance on the series of sixteen canvases Barret painted for Joseph Leeson at Russborough, County Wicklow, in the late 1740s. One stock woman figure, with washing on her head, can be traced back to a view of the Roman Colosseum (NGI 1633), itself after a gouache (NGI 7405) by Giovanni Battista Busiri (1698-1757).Classical ruins sit rather incongruously with the tower of a medieval church. There is more specific natural detail in the plants along the river bank and the rocks overhanging it and his attention to leaf patterns. Barret had, by now, had time to study Claude Lorrain (1604/05-1682), making a pair of copies believed to have come from the collection of Samuel Madden (Christie’s, London, 12 July 1991, lots 68A and 68B). Of equal interest to the picture is its magnificent carved gilt rococo frame, showing the impact of engraved designs by Matthias Lock (fl. 1724-1769) and Thomas Chippendale (1718-1789). Like the frame of related design on the painting by Claude-Joseph Vernet (q.v.), its provenance is from the same Irish family. Pierced with ovals and gothic quatrefoils, there are running asymmetrical c-curves and a festoon of roses and other flowers. It is topped by an eagle in a cartouche, daringly carved in three dimensions, with only a thin support. The bird turns its head backwards, showing off its feathers and extended wing.

(National Gallery of Ireland: Taking Stock, Exhibition Catalogue. 2010)


ProvenancePossibly Sir John Burke (1782-1847), 2nd Bt., of Marble Hill, Co. Galway; Elizabeth Julia Morris (d.1968), great-granddaughter of Sir John Burke, and by descent; Christie's, London, 17 May 2001, lot 56 (withdrawn); Heritage Gift, 2001