STF_IH_44
Topic: Subject or sitter

The Palladian-style house featured in this painting is the 1755-built mansion known as Beauparc, and is in Co. Meath, Ireland. It is the ancestral home of Charles Lambart (sic), Esq., whose daughter, Frances Thomasine Lambart, married, on the 20th August 1800, the Hon. Earl Talbot. (See attached genealogy and the links below)
https://bit.ly/2PtdYLH
https://bit.ly/302aV0G

The painting is referred to in the 1953 edition of the Collections for a History of Staffordshire, where it is attributed to ‘P... C…’ and dated c.1810. (See attached)

Frances Thomasine died at the Viceregal Lodge (now the residence of the President of Ireland) in Dublin's Phoenix Park, on the 13th December 1819. See ‘The Annual Biography and Obituary for the Year 1821: https://bit.ly/38K3jEa

The house is referred to as Beauparc or Beau Parc (but not Beau Park), and is currently the home of Lord Henry and Lady Iona Mountcharles. The couple also own Slane Castle in Co. Meath.

https://bit.ly/34uvkfo

Kieran Owens, Entry reviewed by Art UK

Completed, Outcome

This discussion is now closed. The title has been updated to ‘A View of Beau Parc’ (previously ‘Park’) and the c.1810 date replaced by c.1755–1775. ‘Unknown artist’ has been updated to ‘Irish School’ with a note that the artist is possibly Thomas Roberts (1748-1777) or William Ashford (1746-1825).

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion. To anyone viewing this discussion for the first time, please see below for all the comments that led to this conclusion.

11 comments

The collection has no further information and will not be removing it from the wall to inspect the back. The lower corners of the painting are quite dark and indistinct in the PCF image, which just becomes fuzzy and muddled when enlarged.

Andrew Chamberlain,

Thomas Roberts (1748-1778) painted "View of Beauparc from the Boyne", so could the artist in this case be his younger brother, Thomas Sautelle Roberts (1764-1826)?

Martin Hopkinson,

Roberts senior's view was engraved by Thomas Milton in 1785 [impression in the National Gallery of Ireland 20277]

Martin Hopkinson,

Jonathan Fisher exhibited View of Beauparc at the Society of Artists in 1766
Pierre Charles Canot executed engravings after some of Fisher's landscapes
Could this painting be as early as the 1770s?

Thomas Roberts was one of three Irish and two English landscape artists whose paintings were engraved by Thomas Milton for his much admired 'The Seats and Demesnes of the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland 1783-93'. See https://www.deburcararebooks.com/product/books/history/milton-thomas-the-seats-and-demesnes-of-the-nobility-and-gentry-of-ireland/

Roberts and William Ashford seem to have favoured hiding their houses behind trees to give prominence to the wooded landscape, as in Roberts' 'Beauparc' (engraved as the 11th plate in the publication and published in 1785).

All three Irish painters painted other houses in Ireland. There is a strong similarity in composition belween Ashford's 'Dun Ran' the 24th plate, published in 1793 and the Ingestre Hall painting of Beau Parc. For Dun Ran see https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1878-1214-607

I would consider William Ashford and Thomas Roberts strong contenders for the authorship of this picture.

Marcie Doran,

The attached snippet from ‘Interiors’ (1988) seems to report that there were "pictures of the house and nearby River Boyne, painted in the eighteenth century by Thomas Roberts" hanging on the walls at Beau Parc.

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Here is a link to an image of a work by Thomas Roberts 'A Distant View of Slane Castle From the River Boyne Below Beauparc' that was in a Sotheby's auction in 1979.

https://tinyurl.com/4cfmd7eu

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For ease of comparison, I've attached a composite based on this work and the image of the painting by Thomas that Kieran found online (09/01/2020 20:06).

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George Barret the elder (1728/1732–1784) also created a view of Beau Parc 'River Boyne at Beau Parc'. Can someone please share the image of that work?

http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/12183

This discussion has had no comments since January 2023. The P. C. initials in the 1953 edition of the Collections for a History of Staffordshire remain a mystery.

Andrew suggested considering William Ashford and Thomas Roberts, which Marcie began following up. The Dictionary of Irish Artists has no candidate for P. C., though it may be worth looking at R. C./D. C./A. C., but it feels like a needle in a haystack.

Kieran, Andrew, Anne (as linked group leaders), perhaps we should just add a subtitle or a note about the title and close this thread, or would you like to leave it open?

Is anyone else still working on it or interested in working on it?

Jacinto Regalado,

The engraving could well be a reversed image of the original painting, but even then it does not match our picture well enough.

We are probably not going to come at a definitive conclusion on the evidence available so far. So, without going so far as attributing it, I think we could say 'Irish School, third quarter of 18th century, possibly Thomas Roberts (1748-1777) or William Ashford (1746-1825)'.