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Irish Arts Review
The Art of Bookbinding Recaptured at Mealy'sAuthor(s): Robert O'ByrneSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring, 2009), pp. 46-47Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20493468 .
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-- X | 1 Z | 1.I S ---- --
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ham 1 HUGH DoUGLAs HAMILTON
(1.7361808) Portrait of Antonio
Canova pastel over traces of
pencil 25 x 20.6cm
HUGH DOUGLAS HAMILTON SOARS ABOVE ESTIMATE AT SOTHEBY'S Less than a fortnight after an exhibition devoted to Hugh
Douglas Hamilton opened at the National Gallery of
Ireland, a pastel portrait by the artist came up for sale in
London at Sotheby's early last December (Fig 1). The sit
ter was the sculptor Antonio Canova
who became one of Hamilton's clos
est friends during the nine years that
the latter spent in Italy before his
return to Ireland in May 1791;
Hamilton seems to have had a partic
ular rapport with sculptors, since
other members of his circle around
t the same period included Christopher Hewetson and John Flaxman. This
point is noted by Nicola Figgis in her
essay in the NGI exhibition cata
logue and she comments that the
influence of Canova was evident on
at least one occasion in Hamilton's
'use of smooth lines and repetitive
compositional rhythms.' Canova was evidently especially
close to Hamilton who, after settling
back in Ireland, wrote 'I wish I was in
Rome, where I could see your works
instead of only hearing about them,
for the sole reason of renewing my
spirit.' During Hamilton's Italian sojourn, Canova was
the subject of a number of pastel portraits, the most
famous of which - Antonio Canova in his Studio with
Henry Tresham and a Plaster Model for the Cupid and
Psyche Sculpture dating from circa 1788 - is now in the
collection of London's Victoria and Albert Museum. The
pastel sold last December by Sotheby's was smaller and
less highly-worked than this picture and in both size and
character was not dissimilar to two other Canova por
traits sold by Christie's in November 1995 and June 2000
respectively. Although, as was shown in the recent exhi bition, Hamilton often worked in oils, he had a particu
lar facility for pastel, a medium much in vogue
throughout the 18th century despite the fact that it is
difficult to use with success. But it allows an artist to work
at speed and thus to produce a portrait in the course of
a single sitting. One of Hamilton's most noted character
istics was an ability to capture a true likeness of his sit
ters, a feature greatly admired during his lifetime. When
the artist spent time in Florence in the autumn of 1783,
a local publication remarked on 'the striking resemblance of his portraits' before pointing out that 'his superior stile
[sic] of painting in crayons' was 'well known'.
It may be assumed therefore that the profile of Canova
sold in December was an accurate image of the most
famous sculptor of the neoclassical era. Canova is shown
in profile and while the head is highly finished, his shirt
and coat are merely outlined and the background lightly
shaded, suggesting this was either an impromptu picture
or else that Hamilton intended to return to finish it at
a later date. Whichever was the case, the work had an
appealing vivacity which helps to explain the price it
fetched at Sotheby's. The two other Canova pastel por
traits already mentioned made ?7,475 and ?5,640 at
their respective sales and this explains why the estimate
for this one was ?6,000-?8,000. In fact, including buyer's
premium, the picture went for an astonishing ?199,250. Lenders to the NGI exhibition must have been amazed
to learn their pastels could be worth so much.
THE ART OF BOOKBINDING RECAPTURED AT MEALY'S In the Irish Arts Review Yearbook for 2000, Maurice
Craig made a proposal for the Millennium: that the Irish
Parliamentary bindings be recreated in all the splendour of their lost originals. Some explanation is probably nec
essary here. The Irish Parliamentary bindings, described by a pre-eminent authority on the subject as 'probably
4 6 M 1 R I S H ARTS RE V I E W SPRI N G 2 009
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The word unique is over exploited but it can be accurately employed in this instance since nothing like this volume has existed since 1922
the most majestic series of bound volumes in the world',
comprised 149 manuscripts running from 1613 to 1800.
Nearly all bound in full red morocco with a plethora of
leather and paper onlays profusely covered in gold tool
ing, the earlier volumes had been rebound in the 1730s
and the others bound up shortly after the years to which
they referred. Following the Act of Union, these items
were moved around different locations but towards the
end of the 19th century they were discovered in the
Four Courts by a lawyer, Sir Edward Sullivan who also
happened to be a keen antiquarian and amateur book
binder. Intending to publish a book with colour illus
trations of fifty volumes, Sir Edward took rubbings of
the bindings and photographed nineteen of them; at
the time of this work, he wrote 'considering the large
number of volumes and the magnificent and bewilder ing variety of their artistic designs it may truly be said of them that there is no such set of bound books to be found in any part of the world'.
Sir Edward Sullivan must have been a prescient man because the Irish Parliamentary bindings, like so much other invaluable archive material stored in the Public Records Office, were wantonly destroyed in June 1922
when the Four Courts were bombed during the early stages of the Civil War. And, of course, Craig's modest
proposal for their re-creation as part of Ireland's millen nial celebrations was not acted upon. 'Sooner or later',
he wrote, 'somebody will do it', and indeed somebody did, albeit only in part. Philip Maddock, a long-time
book collector based in the United States, joined forces with bookbinder Trevor Lloyd to create facsimiles of four of the Irish Parliamentary bindings, one based on the
Lords Journal 1763-1764, two on the Commons Journal
1765-1766 and one on the Lords 1765-1766. Maddock retained two of the volumes for himself and intends to
present one to the National Library of Ireland at a later
date so that it can form the centrepiece of an exhibition
on Sullivan and the Parliamentary Bindings; Sullivan's
rubbings are in the collection of the National Library of
Ireland while his photographs are held by the National
Photographic Archive. Meanwhile, the fourth facsimile binding - of the Lords
Journal 1763-1764 and containing a 1768 copy of Sir
William Chambers' Treatise, on Civil Architecture - was
offered for sale early last December in Dublin by Mealy's.
The word unique is over-exploited but it can be accu
rately employed in this instance since nothing like this volume has existed since 1922 (Fig 2). Quite rightly therefore, the volume surpassed its pre-auction estimate
of ?7,000?1O,000 to go for ?13,500. The buyer was a
private Irish collector.
NEW RECORD FOR CHARLES LAMB AT ADAM'S-BONHAMS SALE Steady but not spectacular would be a good description, not just for the work of Charles Lamb (1893-1964), but
also for the prices he has posthumously achieved at auction. Lamb's pictures are in the same ilk
as those of Paul Henry and Maurice MacGonigal
but he was not as fine an artist as either. Like
both of them, he was drawn to the west of
Ireland and inclined to imbue the landscape and its residents with heroic qualities; this largely explains whatever appeal he may possess.
The son of a painter and decorator, Lamb
was bom and raised in Portadown, Co Armagh
and initially followed his father into the same
profession; in 1913 he won a gold medal as the
year's best apprentice housepainter. In the meantime, he started to attend evening art
classes and in 1917 was awarded a scholarship
to the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art
where Patrick Tuohy and Sean Keating were
among his teachers. If the first of these men
encouraged an interest in portraiture, the lat
ter helped to inspire Lamb to look west, as did
the Connemara writer Padraic 6 Conaire.
2 WILLIAM CHAMBERS
(1723-1796) A Treatise
on Civil Architecture
54 x 39cm
3 CHARLES VINCENT LAMB
RHA RUA (1893-1964)
The Turf Cutter oil on
canvas 91.5 x 66cm
SPRING 2009 IRISH ARTS REVIEW | 47
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