Augustus Nicholas Burke (c.1838 – 1891) "Cattle by a Lake,...

Estimate

€8,000 - €10,000

Augustus Nicholas Burke (c.1838 – 1891)

"Cattle by a Lake, Italy, c. 1868," O.O.C.,
signed and dated (indistinctly) l.r. ‘Burke 1868’
84cms high x 148cms wide (33" x 58").  (1)


Judging by the craggy mountains in the background, the setting of this painting may well be the Piedmontese Alps in Italy; the scene depicted is similar to Lake Kastel in Val Formazza. The ostensible subject is a herd of dairy cattle; some lying in the grass, others standing, and a few beginning to follow two leading cattle that have ventured into the water, to slake their thirst. While the subject matter may be conventional, echoing works by Victorian artists such as Thomas Sidney Cooper, this canvas stands out for revealing an artist’s sensitivity to light, and indeed Augustus Nicholas Burke specialised in paintings with titles such as Study of Mid-day Light and Study of Morning Light. In this work it is clear that light is the main subject, with the artist successfully conveying a sense of the clear fresh Alpine air and brilliant light, enhanced by snow-covered mountains.

Born at Knocknagur, Tuam, in Co. Galway, to an Irish father and an English mother, the painter Augustus Nicholas Burke was educated at a private Catholic school in England. After studying art in London, he began exhibiting in 1863 with the Royal Academy; where the first painting he showed, submitted from an address at 9 Dorchester Place, was entitled Landscape. Two years later he was living at Golden Square, from where he sent a view of Maam Valley, Connemara to the RA. In 1869 he submitted Dutch Landscape, indicating that he had made a trip to the Continent the previous year. This would tie in with the present work, which is dated indistinctly ‘1868’. Coming from a well-off family, Burke could travel, and paint, at will. In 1869, he returned to Ireland and, along with his younger sister, the painter Dorothy Burke, lived in Dublin for a year, painting portraits and landscapes. In 1870, the first year he exhibited with the RHA, he was again in the Netherlands, where he remained for two years, painting Dutch scenes which were later shown in Dublin. Around 1875 he spent some time in the village of Tremalo, near Pont Aven, painting landscapes and Breton country people. He was one of the first Irish artists to paint in Brittany; his contemporaries Thomas Hovenden and Aloysius O’Kelly were there also at that time. From an address at 2 Leinster Street, Burke submitted paintings of Pont Aven to the RHA, and over the years he was to show many works at the Academy in Dublin. In 1879 he was appointed Professor of Painting at the RHA; his students included Walter Osborne and J. M. Kavanagh. In 1882, following the assassination of his brother Thomas Henry Burke, Under-Secretary for Ireland, Burke moved to London, where he had a studio at Holland Park Road. He also painted at Walberswick in Suffolk, where Philip Wilson Steer had set up an art school. While in England, he painted what is perhaps his best-known work, The Connemara Girl. Many of Burke’s paintings depict young women; laundresses, seaweed gatherers and servants. In 1889, his health deteriorating, Burke and his sister Dorothy moved to Italy, from where he sent paintings of Venice, Perugia and Florence to the RHA. He died on 28 December 1891 in Florence.
Dr. Peter Murray, 2024