Nathaniel Hone RHA (1931-1917) St. Marnock's Sails and Fragment of Wreck, Malahide, Co. Dublin Oil on canvas, 66 x 99cm (26 x 39'') Signed Provenance: Magdalen Hone; James Adam, Dublin, early...

Nathaniel Hone RHA (1931-1917) St. Marnock's Sails and Fragment of Wreck, Malahide, Co. Dublin Oil on canvas, 66 x 99cm (26 x 39'') Signed Provenance: Magdalen Hone; James Adam, Dublin, early 1970's; Private collection, Dublin Exhibited: Milmo-Penny Fine Art, November 1999 Literature: Bodkin, Appendix XVI, number 27; The site of the wreck on St. Marnock's Sands, known today as Velvet Strand, was no more than a stones throw from Moldowney House, Hone's residence from the 1880's to 1896. The flat skeleton of the wreck remains on the beach to this day. The line of the vessel suggests that it was of considerable age when painted by Hone, probably in the mid-1890's, just before he departed Moldowney. Similar versions of the painting are recorded. Thomas Bodkin, 'Four Irish Landscape Painters', refers to an earlier work as ''one of his best works'' in praising the Ministry of Fine Arts in Paris on their acquisition of L'Epave, a canvas of similar dimensions to the current work. This painting is now held by the Mus?e d'Orsay and illustrated in the National Gallery of Ireland exhibition catalogue, fig 42 p75. Hone lent The Derelict , a larger version of almost three feet by four feet, to the Franco-British exhibition of 1908. It was subsequently purchased by Hugh Lane who presented it to the Scottish Modern Arts Association in the same year. In turn, it went to the National Gallery, Edinburgh, where it was displayed for six months each year and then sent on tour to Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Stirling. In this work, the wreck is more intact than in this painting, which suggests an earlier date of execution. The softer style and the inclusion of a small group of children playing beside the dunes also suggests a slightly later date for this canvas and conforms to Hone's output of the mid-1890's. Our thanks to Dominic Milmo-Penny for his assistance in cataloguing this work.

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