WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART MONDAY 31 MAY 2021 AT 6PM

72 52 Maurice MacGonigal PRHA HRA HRSA (1900-1979) WOMAN AT A SPINNINGWHEEL, c.1932 oil on board 30 by 47.50in. (76.2 by 120.7cm) Frame Dimensions: 44 by 61.5in. (111.8 by 156.2cm) Some surface dirt visible. Otherwise very good condition. Provenance: Christie’s-Hamilton Osborne King, Dublin, 26 May 1993, lot 119; Private collection; Adam’s, 1 April 2015, lot 22; Private collection Exhibited: Gorry Gallery, Dublin, November to December, 1993, catalogue no. 42 (illustrated) This is one of a series of painted panels for the ‘Minstrels Hall’ in Runnymede House, Shrewsbury Road, Dublin - a splendid ‘Arts & Crafts’ style house, painted for the owners, the Meade family, at the time of a family wedding in 1932. The series was a cycle of Irish landscapes and figures. This panel hung on the first level and to the right of the decorative scheme in the two storied Inglenook. The completed decorative scheme was launched by the family with a round of parties and picnics, including an afternoon ‘Thé Dansant’ attended by the Governor General, James MacNeill, and his wife Josephine( later Irish Minister to The Hague). The model was the artist’s older sister Eileen MacGonigal, the wife of Commandant Louis Marie, an Army officer and, like the artist, War of Independence veteran. Eileen was noted, even then, for her style & panache. The group of panels were eventually divided between descendants of the commissioning family, prior to the house being sold. My father always used first class materials, so the paintings have survived in fresh condition to the present day. As the works were hung at a height originally, many of the details are emphasised for viewing from a distance. Today, hung at eye level the viewer gets to see in detail the artist’s technique of drawing as well as colour. He had trained and was, at that time, a junior partner in the studios of his cousin Harry Clarke, resulting in his use of vivid colours to gain his visual point, painting, as it were into the light. Ciarán MacGonigal May 2021 €5,000-€7,000 (£4,350-£6,090 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot52