ATTRIBUTED TO THOMAS POOLEY (1646-1720) Portrait of a young ...

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€6,000 - €10,000

ATTRIBUTED TO THOMAS POOLEY (1646-1720) Portrait of a young girl seated on a rustic bench, with dolphin fountain and orange tree in the background Oil on canvas, 123 x 96cm Thomas Pooley was born in Suffolk, close to the town of Edmondsbury (Bury St Edmunds). He was the son of Thomas Pooley and Douglas [sic] Nevill, co-heir of Edward Nevill, esq. His father was well established in Dublin pre-1640s but returned to Suffolk after the outbreak of hostilities in Ireland. Thomas the artist is best known for a series of fine portraits of his relatives, members of the Southwell and Perceval families. Some examples are in the NGI while others remain in Kings Weston House, nr Bristol, which belonged to the Southwell family. When he came to Ireland in 1676 in the train of the incoming Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Essex, Pooley began painting full-length portraits of members of the New English establishment in Dublin. Portraits from the period pre-1700, include the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Sir Humphrey Jervis, he also received commissions from Dublin Corporation for portraits of Charles II, William III and Queen Mary II. At that time, he was well regarded as a painter who was skilled in ‘painting faces’ and his work commanded £25 for a ¾-length portrait. A striking portrait of the young Jonathan Swift when he was a student, was painted, c. 1685, by Pooley, who was related to him by marriage. Like his contemporary William Gandy, Pooley’s portraits of young men are among his most appealing works. Several of the portraits hanging in the Great Hall of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham were also painted by Pooley. The background of this portrait, which has a dolphin fountain, orange tree and other features, is typical for the period 1680–90. Also, the pearl ropes and gold fringes of the sitter’s costume are found in several portraits by artists of the period, such as Sir Peter Lely, the most fashionable painter of his day, and it is known that Pooley often painted in a style after that artist. There is a similar portrait of a young girl named as ‘the Lady Neville’ (Pooley’s mother was a member of the Neville family), engraved by S. Leader and painted by Pooley in 1669. There are traces of overpainting on the dress. This painting would have been his earliest known work. Jane Fenlon, September 2022 Literature: Jane Fenlon; ‘Old Pooley the Painter: the life and career of a seventeenth-century painter in Dublin’ in (ed.) Nicola Figgis, Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies, Journal of the Irish Georgian Society – vol. vii, 2004, pp 12–31. Jane Fenlon, ‘‘A good painter may get good bread’, Thomas Pooley and Garret Morphey, two gentlemen painters’ in (eds) R. Gillespie and R.F. Foster Irish Provincial Cultures in the Long Eighteenth Century, Essays for Toby Barnard, 2012 pp.220-230 W.G. Strickland, A Dictionary of Irish Artists, vol. ii, 1912, pp.251-3.