WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART Monday 7 March 2022 from 6PM

131 IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART · 7 MARCH 2022 AT 6PM 101 Rory Breslin (b.1963) MASK OF THE SUIR bronze; (artist’s proof from an edition of 3) signed and inscribed [A/P] at top 35 by 16in. (88.9 by 40.6cm) In The Mask of the Suir, the ornamentation and the beard represent wool and symbolise its subsequent manufacture. The moustache and beard have the characteristics of fine-spun wool, the face is open eyed and energetic. Over the head from side to side is draped the fell of a sheep which has symmetrically balanced at either end, the depiction of an icon of the processing of wool, to the left a single bow shears and to the right Alder cones to denote the use of the tree, its cones and bark in the wool tanneries along the river. Below the sheep three weaver’s bobbins rise from a turban, whose folds have the broad creases of wool. Notable for its woollen mills at the end of the eighteenth century, Arthur Young in his Tour of Ireland (1780) speaks of Carrick-on-Suir as a centre of the woollen industry. In John Payne’s Universal Geography (1797), he distinguishes Tipperary as rich in sheep. Adapted from Edward Smyth’s River-God keystone, The Mask of the Suir is a larger than life- size depiction riverine on the North-Western facade of Dublin’s Customs House. €5,000-€7,000 (£4,240-£5,930 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot101