Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The building itself was designed by Francis Fowke (1823-65), whose architectural credits
also include London's Victoria & Albert Museum. The entire building comprises 54 gal-
leries; works are divided by history, school, geography and theme. There are four wings:
the original Dargan Wing, the Milltown Wing (1899−1903), the Beit Wing (1964-68) and
the Millennium Wing (2002).
The collection spans works from the 14th to the 20th centuries and includes all the ma-
jor Continental schools.
Irish Art & Jack Butler Yeats
Obviously there is an emphasis on Irish art, and among the works to look out for are Wil-
liam Orpen's
Sunlight
, Roderic O'Conor's
Reclining Nude
and
Young Breton Girl
, and
Paul Henry's
The Potato Diggers
. But the highlight, and one you should definitely take
time to explore, is the
Yeats Room
, devoted to and containing more than 30 paintings by
Jack B Yeats, a uniquely Irish Impressionist and arguably the country's greatest artist.
Some of his finest moments are
The Liffey Swim
,
Men of Destiny
and
Above the Fair
.
The European Masters
The absolute star exhibit from a pupil of the European schools is Caravaggio's sublime
The Taking of Christ
, in which the troubled Italian genius attempts to light the scene figurat-
ively and metaphorically (the artist himself is portrayed holding the lantern on the far
right). The masterpiece lay undiscovered for more than 60 years in a Jesuit house in
nearby Leeson St, and was found accidentally by the chief curator of the gallery, Sergio
Benedetti, in 1992. Fra Angelico, Titian and Tintoretto are all in this neighbourhood. Fa-
cing Caravaggio, way down the opposite end of the gallery, is
A Genovese Boy Standing
on a Terrace
by Van Dyck. Old Dutch and Flemish masters line up in between, but all de-
fer to Vermeer's
Lady Writing a Letter
, which is lucky to be here at all, having been stolen by
Dublin gangster Martin Cahill in 1992, as featured in the film
The General
.
The French section contains Jules Breton's famous 19th-century
The Gleaner
s, along
with works by Monet, Degas, Pisarro and Delacroix, while Spain chips in with an unusu-
ally scruffy
Still Life with Mandolin
by Picasso, as well as paintings by El Greco and
Goya, and an early Velázquez. There is a small British collection with works by Reynolds,
Hogarth and Gainsborough (
The Cottage Girl
is especially beautiful).
Joseph Turner Exhibition
