WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART MONDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2022

130 95 Sir Martin Archer Shee PRA (1769-1850) PORTRAIT OF DANIEL O’CONNELL oil on canvas 36 by 27.50in. (91.4 by 69.9cm) Frame Dimensions: 44 by 36in. (111.8 by 91.4cm) Provenance: The Hon. W. S. Campbell, United States Consul in Holland, 1843-62 and Consul General at Dresden, 1862-71; His sale, Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York, 10-11 May 1899; Whence purchased by John D. Crimmins, financier and philanthropist; By whom donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 1899; Deaccessioned by the Metropolitan and sold through Sotheby’s, New York, Old Master and 19th Century European Art, 26 January 2008, lot 131; Private collection; Whyte’s, 29 September 2008, lot 143; Private collection Exhibited: Fifth Avenue Galleries, New York, 10-11 May 1899; Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1900 Literature: ‘New Pictures at the Museum’, New York Times, 15 April 1900; The Champlain Educator; vol. 23, 1904, pp. 305; George H. Story, Illustrated Catalogue: Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, 1905, pp. 159-60; David C. Preyer, The Art of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, 1909; Katharine Baetjer, European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by artists born before 1865. A summary catalogue, 1995, illustrated p. 202 This important and intriguing portrait of Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator, is the only known official portrait to depict him with his natural receding hairline, rather than the recognisable mop of brown hair with which he was usually depicted for posterity. O’Connell’s visage was painted by many of the foremost artists of the day, among them Joseph Haverty, whose full length portrait of O’Connell hangs in the Reform Club, London, and DavidWilkie, whose dashing portrayal is now on loan to the National Gallery of Ireland. In all known portraits O’Connell wore his customary brown wig. Whilst O’Connell’s baldness is today largely forgotten, in his own time it was a widely known fact thanks to the jibes of satirists and political opponents. In one cartoon, titled The Irish Agitator Tossed by the Papal Bull, O’Connell is sent flying with his hat and wig going in opposite directions, his bald pate exposed to the world. A correspondent for the New York Times described with some relish witnessing O’Connell leave a courtroom, remove his barrister robes and bar wig and don a “curly, nutty-brown ‘jasey’” to cover his baldness.1 O’Connell himself was capable of a joke about his appearance. In one election contest, he commented on the rather plain appearance of his opponent, a conservative barrister by the name of John B. West. Thus taunted, West replied, “it’s all very well for Mr O’Connell to attack me on my appearance, but I can tell you, if you saw Mr O’Connell without his wig, he does not present a face which is much to boast of”, whereupon O’Connell is said to have whipped off his wig for the crowd’s great appreciation”2 The artist, Sir Martin Archer Shee, one of Ireland’s most successful portrait painters and President of the Royal Academy in London, first met O’Connell in 1825, during the sitting of a Parliamentary Committee. O’Connell was usually reluctant to sit for portraits, but granted Shee the sittings presumably as a compliment to the distinguished Irishman, one of the few Catholics to have forged a successful career in London. The portrait was probably executed in London in or around 1825-30. The earliest known owner of the work was the Hon. W. S. Campbell, United States Consul to Holland (1843-62) and Consul General at Dresden (1862-71), who, according to contemporary accounts, was a well known “connoisseur in many a European art centre”.3 Campbell’s collection was sold in 1899 at the Fifth Avenue Galleries in New York, where financier and philanthropist John D. Crimmins purchased the portrait of O’Connell. Shortly afterwards Crimmins was approached by James Boothby Burke Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy, who offered him a sum between $1,500 and $1,600 for the work.4 Burke Roche may have been acting on behalf of an institution, as five years later a New York magazine reported that Crimmins had “nobly prevented” the portrait’s return to the British Museum.5 In any case Crimmins declined the offer and instead promptly donated the portrait to the Metropolitan Museum. It first went on exhibit at the Metropolitan in 1900, and was later loaned out to Gracie Mansion in Omaha (1950-54) and the American Bar Association (1961-78). Successive catalogues to the Metropolitan Museum collection document the work. In 1909 it was described as “an excellent character study, suggesting mobility of countenance and fiery temper”, and in 1995 it was illustrated in the summary catalogue of European Paintings by artists born before 1865. However, in recent times the museum staff, whilst researching their collections, compared Shee’s portrait to other known portraits of O’Connell, and were concerned to note the receding hairline. Not realising that the statesman was in fact bald, they decided to de-accession the work, and sold it through Sotheby’s in New York. Since then, a fuller history of the painting’s provenance has come to light, as have the facts of O’Connell’s baldness, enabling the portrait to be once more fully identified as that of one of Ireland’s greatest statesmen, Daniel O’Connell. 1 New York Times, 27 December 1874 2 James E. McGee, Irish Wit and Humor: Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O’Leary and O’Connell, F. Pustet and Co., New York, Cincinnati, c.1886 3 New York Times, 10 May 1899 4 Letter from John D. Crimmins to Mr MarQuand, Metropolitan Museum, New York, undated, c.1899, Metropolitan Museum archives 5 The Champlain Educator, vol. 23, 1904, p. 305 €12,000-€18,000 (£10,340-£15,520 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot95