Walter Frederick Osborne
MOONLIGHT, RUSH HARBOUR
Lot 26
Result:
Not Sold
Estimate:
€60,000 - €90,000
Walter Frederick Osborne RHA, 1859-1903
MOONLIGHT, RUSH HARBOUR (1899)
Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 (51.5 x 61cm), signature verso.
Exhibited: Walter Osborne Memorial Exhibition 1903-4, no. 79, Lent by the Trustees.
When Osborne painted Moonlight,...
Read more
Lot 26
Walter Frederick Osborne
MOONLIGHT, RUSH HARBOUR
Lot 26
Walter Frederick Osborne
MOONLIGHT, RUSH HARBOUR
Estimate:
€60,000 - €90,000
Walter Frederick Osborne RHA, 1859-1903
MOONLIGHT, RUSH HARBOUR (1899)
Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 (51.5 x 61cm), signature verso.
Exhibited: Walter Osborne Memorial Exhibition 1903-4, no. 79, Lent by the Trustees.
When Osborne painted Moonlight, Rush Harbour in the late summer of 1899 he was regarded as without doubt, the leading painter of Ireland.[1] The critical success of his depiction of Bram Stokers wife Florence Balcombe at the Royal Academy in 1895 led to a clamour for his services as a portrait painter, and he won further acclaim with his portrait of Mary Guinness and her daughter Margaret which was awarded a medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. In 1895 he took over John Butler Yeatss former portrait studio at 7 St Stephens Green. His popularity soon extended to England which necessitated his renting a studio in London during the fashionable Season, usually from April to July.[2] As a respite from both the temporal and physiological stresses of portraiture, as well as the bustle of London, Osborne appears to have selfishly reserved the months of August and September to indulge in what his close friend Stephen Gwynn described as the life of his choice living in the open air all day, painting from morning to night.[3] Invariably, he stayed at Hill Cottage directly opposite St Marnocks, the home of his patrons, the Jamesons. From there he had immediate access to Portmarnocks Velvet Strand, with Rush and Lusk only a short train journey away.
From his youth Osborne was preoccupied with the myriad optical effects of nature, be it dappled sunlight or the symphony of grey tones of an overcast day. Curiously, 1899 marked his first enquiries into the luminary effects of nocturnal light. At the Dublin Art Club in 1891 he purchased Moonrise by his friend Fred Brown, a founding member of the New English Art Club and later Professor of the Slade. This sparked a number of depictions of moonrises in succeeding years, most notably Rising Moon, Galway (1892) and Peaceful Eve (1893). However, these scenes deal with fading light and are not nocturnes in the truest sense. He lent Browns Moonrise to the 1899 Art Loan Exhibition, Dublin and this could have reignited his interest in the subject. However, it is more likely the influence of James McNeill Whistler, whom he had admired since his student days. Osborne was well acquainted with Whistlers famous nocturnes having encountered them on numerous occasions over the 1880s and 90s, including in Dublin in 1884 when the American exhibited twenty-six works with the Dublin Sketching Club.[4] Moonlight, Rush Harbour recalls Whistlers Nocturne: Blue and Gold Southampton Water (1872) which he may have seen at the Goupil Gallery the previous year. This also coincided with a strong Whistlerian aesthetic emerging in Osbornes work. In August/September 1900 Whistler took a house named Craigie in Sutton, Co. Dublin from where he painted views of Howth, Dublin Bay and the nearby golf links and it is entirely plausible that this was upon Osbornes recommendation, just as it is plausible that the two artists worked together, en plein air. The only record of their conversations during this stay was supplied by John Butler Yeats who recounted Whistlers quip to Osborne that he was half Irish, half Scotch - thank God, no English.[5]
Osborne made a plethora of studies and preparatory drawings in pencil for Moonlight, Rush Harbour, many of which are contained in his sketchbooks held at the National Gallery of Ireland.[6] These are replete with detailed notes on colour and tone. There are no extant pochade studies in oil which relate to the scene which is atypical of Osborne. However, this may also be a further indication of his adoption of Whistlers methodology where his nocturnes were concerned, that is to say, working largely from memory. It is also noteworthy that Monets London series, which he began in September 1899, was completed in his studio from memory.[7]Notwithstanding the confidently impastoed lights which stand proud from the canvas, the surface is rendered in remarkably thin, delicate glazes which allow the eye to penetrate the paint layers and canvas beneath, thus conveying a sense of the vibration of light and atmosphere. This was achieved using a resinous painting medium, akin to what Whistler called his sauce.[8] A Summers Night (1899), another nocturne of Rush executed during the same period was exhibited at the New English Arts Club and later the Royal Hibernian Academy whereupon it was purchased by the Jamesons. The critics description of it applies admirably to its sister painting Moonlight, Rush Harbour: A very powerful picture by Mr Walter Osborne It deals with darkness and light. It is a village scene the main street plainly visible through the flood of light which flashes on the thick darkness from the windows and open door of the house. In other parts of the picture, where all is apparently gloom, closer analysis shows that the darkness is by no means impenetrable. The lights and shades of the picture are brought out with fine effect, while the clear blue sky overhead, flecked with stars, puts the finishing to this work of intense picturesqueness.[9]
Gearoid Arthur Hayes, Oct 2024.
[1] A Ladys London Letter, Cheltenham Examiner, 14 March 1900.
[2] Gearid Arthur Hayes, The Portraits of Walter Frederick Osborne: A Critical Analysis (MPhil Diss., Trinity College Dublin, 2018), 4.
[3] Stephen Gwynn, Garden Wisdom (New York: MacMillan & Co., 1922), 31.
[4] Ronald Anderson, Whistler in Dublin. 1884, Irish Arts Review, vol. 3, no. 3 (Autumn 1986): 45-51.
[5] John Butler Yeats Letter to the Editor, Freemans Journal, 20 March 1907.
[6] Walter Frederick Osborne, Sketchbook 5NGI.19202 and Sketchbook 8 NGI.19205, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.
[7] Kenneth McConkey and Anna Greutzner Robbins, Impressionism in Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press 1995), 163.
[8] Hayes, The Portraits of Walter Frederick Osborne: A Critical Analysis, 47-48.
[9] Royal Hibernian Academy Varnishing Day, Irish Independent, 5 March 1900.
MOONLIGHT, RUSH HARBOUR (1899)
Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 (51.5 x 61cm), signature verso.
Exhibited: Walter Osborne Memorial Exhibition 1903-4, no. 79, Lent by the Trustees.
When Osborne painted Moonlight, Rush Harbour in the late summer of 1899 he was regarded as without doubt, the leading painter of Ireland.[1] The critical success of his depiction of Bram Stokers wife Florence Balcombe at the Royal Academy in 1895 led to a clamour for his services as a portrait painter, and he won further acclaim with his portrait of Mary Guinness and her daughter Margaret which was awarded a medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. In 1895 he took over John Butler Yeatss former portrait studio at 7 St Stephens Green. His popularity soon extended to England which necessitated his renting a studio in London during the fashionable Season, usually from April to July.[2] As a respite from both the temporal and physiological stresses of portraiture, as well as the bustle of London, Osborne appears to have selfishly reserved the months of August and September to indulge in what his close friend Stephen Gwynn described as the life of his choice living in the open air all day, painting from morning to night.[3] Invariably, he stayed at Hill Cottage directly opposite St Marnocks, the home of his patrons, the Jamesons. From there he had immediate access to Portmarnocks Velvet Strand, with Rush and Lusk only a short train journey away.
From his youth Osborne was preoccupied with the myriad optical effects of nature, be it dappled sunlight or the symphony of grey tones of an overcast day. Curiously, 1899 marked his first enquiries into the luminary effects of nocturnal light. At the Dublin Art Club in 1891 he purchased Moonrise by his friend Fred Brown, a founding member of the New English Art Club and later Professor of the Slade. This sparked a number of depictions of moonrises in succeeding years, most notably Rising Moon, Galway (1892) and Peaceful Eve (1893). However, these scenes deal with fading light and are not nocturnes in the truest sense. He lent Browns Moonrise to the 1899 Art Loan Exhibition, Dublin and this could have reignited his interest in the subject. However, it is more likely the influence of James McNeill Whistler, whom he had admired since his student days. Osborne was well acquainted with Whistlers famous nocturnes having encountered them on numerous occasions over the 1880s and 90s, including in Dublin in 1884 when the American exhibited twenty-six works with the Dublin Sketching Club.[4] Moonlight, Rush Harbour recalls Whistlers Nocturne: Blue and Gold Southampton Water (1872) which he may have seen at the Goupil Gallery the previous year. This also coincided with a strong Whistlerian aesthetic emerging in Osbornes work. In August/September 1900 Whistler took a house named Craigie in Sutton, Co. Dublin from where he painted views of Howth, Dublin Bay and the nearby golf links and it is entirely plausible that this was upon Osbornes recommendation, just as it is plausible that the two artists worked together, en plein air. The only record of their conversations during this stay was supplied by John Butler Yeats who recounted Whistlers quip to Osborne that he was half Irish, half Scotch - thank God, no English.[5]
Osborne made a plethora of studies and preparatory drawings in pencil for Moonlight, Rush Harbour, many of which are contained in his sketchbooks held at the National Gallery of Ireland.[6] These are replete with detailed notes on colour and tone. There are no extant pochade studies in oil which relate to the scene which is atypical of Osborne. However, this may also be a further indication of his adoption of Whistlers methodology where his nocturnes were concerned, that is to say, working largely from memory. It is also noteworthy that Monets London series, which he began in September 1899, was completed in his studio from memory.[7]Notwithstanding the confidently impastoed lights which stand proud from the canvas, the surface is rendered in remarkably thin, delicate glazes which allow the eye to penetrate the paint layers and canvas beneath, thus conveying a sense of the vibration of light and atmosphere. This was achieved using a resinous painting medium, akin to what Whistler called his sauce.[8] A Summers Night (1899), another nocturne of Rush executed during the same period was exhibited at the New English Arts Club and later the Royal Hibernian Academy whereupon it was purchased by the Jamesons. The critics description of it applies admirably to its sister painting Moonlight, Rush Harbour: A very powerful picture by Mr Walter Osborne It deals with darkness and light. It is a village scene the main street plainly visible through the flood of light which flashes on the thick darkness from the windows and open door of the house. In other parts of the picture, where all is apparently gloom, closer analysis shows that the darkness is by no means impenetrable. The lights and shades of the picture are brought out with fine effect, while the clear blue sky overhead, flecked with stars, puts the finishing to this work of intense picturesqueness.[9]
Gearoid Arthur Hayes, Oct 2024.
[1] A Ladys London Letter, Cheltenham Examiner, 14 March 1900.
[2] Gearid Arthur Hayes, The Portraits of Walter Frederick Osborne: A Critical Analysis (MPhil Diss., Trinity College Dublin, 2018), 4.
[3] Stephen Gwynn, Garden Wisdom (New York: MacMillan & Co., 1922), 31.
[4] Ronald Anderson, Whistler in Dublin. 1884, Irish Arts Review, vol. 3, no. 3 (Autumn 1986): 45-51.
[5] John Butler Yeats Letter to the Editor, Freemans Journal, 20 March 1907.
[6] Walter Frederick Osborne, Sketchbook 5NGI.19202 and Sketchbook 8 NGI.19205, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.
[7] Kenneth McConkey and Anna Greutzner Robbins, Impressionism in Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press 1995), 163.
[8] Hayes, The Portraits of Walter Frederick Osborne: A Critical Analysis, 47-48.
[9] Royal Hibernian Academy Varnishing Day, Irish Independent, 5 March 1900.
Sign-up to our auction alert
Signup for personalised Irish art recommendations, invitations to viewings and auctions, articles and more.