Turner Watercolours

Time: Mon-Sat: 9.30am-5.30pm Thur: 9.30am-8.30pm Sun: 12noon-5.30pm

Turner is admired as one of the great watercolourists, for his technique, imaginative response to nature and portrayal of the English and continental landscape. His life coincided with the new status of watercolour and increase in its practitioners. In keeping with annual tradition, the National Gallery of Ireland will display the Vaughan Bequest of watercolours for the month of January which will show how the artist magically captured the effects of light. The 31 watercolours of the Vaughan Bequest span the artist's career and include examples from his Continental tours, which depict stunning locations like The Doge's Palace in Venice, Lake Lucerne, and the fortresses at Bellinzona in Switzerland.

The Turner exhibition will be complemented in 2010 by an exciting display of seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century silhouettes and miniature portraits - a beautiful collection bequeathed to the Gallery in 1985 by Belfast-born Mary A. McNeill (1897-1984), who was a notable collector and historian. Many miniaturists came from a goldsmithing or other craft background. Henry Bone (1755-1843), whose enamel-on-copper miniature of then Lord High Treasurer of Ireland William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire (1748-1811) started his career in a factory, decorating china. In the eighteenth century, formally trained artists such as John Smart (1741/43-1811) and Richard Crosse (1742-1810) brought a new standard of education and quality to miniature painting. One such example is Crosse's portrait of Mrs John Harrison (d.1803), painted in watercolour on ivory. When photography came into vogue around 1850 it effectively brought about the demise of the miniature. These delicate, exquisitely painted miniatures remain in pristine condition to this day, and bears testament to the generations of collectors and previous owners who cared for them.

For More Information:
http://www.nationalgallery.ie