Augustus Burke RHA (1838-1891)   "Portrait of Walter Osborne...

Estimate

€5,000 - €7,000

Augustus Burke RHA (1838-1891)
 
"Portrait of Walter Osborne,"  oils on canvas 60cms x 50cms (24” x 20”). (1)
Inscribed verso ‘Mrs. Segrave.

Provenance: Matilda Segrave; John Talbot; thence by family descent
Exhibited: Milmo-Penny Fine Art, Dublin, October 1992.

Born at Knocknagur in 1838, into a long-established Galway family, Augustus Burke was the son of William Burke, and brother of Sir Theobald Hubert Burke--the thirteenth, and last Baronet of Glinsk. Another brother, Thomas, became a senior civil servant and served as Under Secretary for Ireland. From an early age, Burke was a keen artist, depicting the people and landscapes of Connemara. He studied initially at the Royal Academy Schools in London, and exhibited at the RA from 1863 onwards. Returning to Ireland six years later, he began a long association with the Royal Hibernian Academy, where he became Professor of Painting. Influenced by French artists, Corot, Bastien-Lepage and Millet, but also by Dutch artists such as Cuyp, Burke specialised in painting rural and coastal scenes in Ireland, particularly in counties Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford. He delighted in depicting animals; horses standing patiently while seaweed is collected, cattle and sheep grazing, and tranquil evening scenes. His best-known painting, A Connemara Girl, depicting a young woman with goats, is in the National Gallery of Ireland. As professor at the RHA, Burke encouraged his students to travel to the Continent to continue their studies. In 1875, along with Aloysius O’Kelly, he was at Pont-Aven in Brittany, and over the years following he exhibited several Breton scenes at the RHA. He also went on trips to Holland, showing the resulting landscapes at exhibitions in Britain and Ireland. Burke frequently painted in England, as evidenced by views on the River Thames, and at Ilfracombe. His distress at the murder of his brother Thomas by Irish nationalists the Phoenix Park in 1882 caused him to resign his professorship and move permanently to England. Two years later he was at Walberswick, along with former students from Dublin, Walter Osborne and Nathaniel Hill. Like other seaside villages in Suffolk, Walberswick had become popular with artists in the late nineteenth century--notably Philip Wilson Steer, Miles Birket Foster, J. Arnesby Brown, Sarah Purser, J. M. Kavanagh and Aloysius O’Kelly. In later years Burke lived in Florence, where he died in 1891.

This head and shoulders portrait of his friend Walter Osborne depicts the sitter in a formal and slightly sombre mode, set against a neutral background, wearing a brown jacket, waistcoat, wing collar and black necktie, and looking at the observer with a candid, expressionless gaze. Although the face is youthful, Osborne’s hair, still black, is greying at the temples, and his moustache is also greying. As Osborne was born in 1859, and Burke died in 1891, this portrait most likely dates from the late 1880’s. It captures something of  the vulnerability of Osborne, who died from pneumonia, aged just 43. The son of equestrian painter William Osborne, he had studied at the Royal Hibernian Academy Schools, winning several prizes. Like several of his fellow students, and encouraged by Burke, he moved on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and in later years, along with Nathaniel Hill and Burke, he painted at English seaside towns, including Walberswick, Hastings and Rye.
Dr. Peter Murray, 2022