Walter Frederick Osborne RHA (1859 - 1903) The Hurdy-Gurdy Player (c. 1887) Oil on panel, 37 x 25.5cms (14.5 x 10'') Signed Provenance: Purchased from the Cynthia O'Connor Gallery 1980 by the...

Walter Frederick Osborne RHA (1859 - 1903) The Hurdy-Gurdy Player (c. 1887) Oil on panel, 37 x 25.5cms (14.5 x 10'') Signed Provenance: Purchased from the Cynthia O'Connor Gallery 1980 by the current owner. Exhibited: Exhibition of Recent Acquisitions, Cynthia O'Connor Gallery, May-June 1980, cat. no. 10 (copy of catalogue verso); ''Ireland: Her People and Landscape'' The AVA Gallery, June - Sept 2012, Cat. No. 42 Literature: ''Ireland: Her People and Landscape'' Exhibition Catalogue, full page illustration p49 After studying in Antwerp, 1881-83, and painting in Brittany, 1883, Osborne spent the rest of the eighties dividing his time between Ireland and England. Generally he spent the summer months in English villages or small towns, painting rural scenes, children in farmyards, street scenes, agricultural subjects and landscapes. In 1887, when the present picture, The Hurdy-Gurdy Player was painted, Osborne worked both in Berkshire and Hampshire in south central England and in Dublin. This was a productive year for the artist who executed a number of appealing pictures, including Down an Old Court, Newbury, 1887(i), Boy under Trees(ii), In St. Patrick's Cathedral(iii) and Near St,Patrick's Close (National Gallery of Ireland), one of Osborne's most popular pictures, as well as The Hurdy-Gurdy Player, all of which include the figures of children. Osborne was attracted by village scenes with figures in the street with sunlight falling on red-brick houses and red tiled roofs. The Hurdy-Gurdy Player may be set in Newbury, Berkshire, where he was working in 1887. Although the street scenes are naturally observed, Osborne almost treats the street as an open air stage set where a cross-section of the local community, men, women and children, are shown going about their business: shopping, working, pausing to talk, playing music, or simply observing the goings-on. Some people are well-to-do, some wearing working clothes, while the garments of others are more threadbare and impoverished. The 'stage-like' impression is emphasized here by the fact that the view is closed off by buildings in the background. In the centre middle distance is a working woman with a long apron, while closer to us are a well-to-do woman and a teenage girl. The hurdy-gurdy player stands in statuesque pose and wearing a hat, left of centre. (Although the picture is named after him, cobble stones appear to show through the figure, suggesting that it may have been added in afterwards.) The hurdy-gurdy was a stringed musical instrument which dated to the early Middle Ages(iv). It was played by turning a handle, which made a droning sound, while the pressing of keys created the tune. The hurdy-gurdy became popular amongst travelling musicians in Savoy in France and the Low Countries in the 17th and 18th Centuries. There is a fine example of a hurdy-gurdy instrument made by Jon Quig of Coleraine in the late 18th Century in the National Museum of Ireland(v). Hurdy-gurdy players began to be included in paintings by Rembrandt and Georges de la Tour; and by English and Irish artists, such as William Gillard with the delightful Hurdy-Gurdy Boy(vi). For example, A Dutch Merrymaking, 1692, by Cornelis Dusart and Fete Champetre by Jean Lebel (NGI), possibly by French artists such as Antoine Watteau and Francois Bonvin, and also by Irish artist George Sharpe. Travelling musicians or performers were the sort of itinerant characters that appealed to Osborne, here in The Hurdy-Gurdy Player, and also in St. Patrick's Close (NGI) with its piping boy, and Life in the Streets (1893, Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane) including a barrel organ player. Richard Thomas Moynan shared this interest, as for example in A Travelling Show, 1892 (Karen Reihill Fine Art) which includes a Punch-and-Judy man with drum. More prominent in Osborne's painting is the group of figures in the right-hand foreground, including a girl with red scarf and tray, a woman with black scarf, and two children who look back at the scene. The little boy with cap is a familiar type in Osborne's paintings, such as appears in many of his pictures. Although relatively small in scale, The Hurdy-Gurdy Player could almost be a prototype for the more elaborate street and market scenes which Osborne was to paint: the aforementioned St. Patrick's Close and Life in the Streets, as well as Cherry Ripe, c.1889 (Ulster Museum, Belfast), set in Rye(vii), and market scenes in Galway, all of which include a variety of figures and a wealth of anecdotal detail. Distinctive architectural features in The Hurdy-Gurdy Player include the diagonal 'curb' or 'hipped' edge of the roof of the tall building, a detail of certain English houses and barns to protect against high winds(viii), and the tall brick chimney stacks. Although depicted in part in shadow, the painting is denominated by a warm reddish-brown, burnt sienna and umber palette, which was later used more vividly in Cherry Ripe. Some of the figures are suggested in a sketchy but skillful manner. Horizontal strokes are used to convey the brickwork in the buildings and cobble stones, and a 'square-brush' style is employed in the chimney stacks to give blurred edges against the sky. The picture is signed with the squared capital letters that Osborne used in the late 1880's. Julian Campbell Notes (i) Jeanne Sheehy, Walter Osborne, Ballycotton, 1974, no.157; Jeanne Sheehy, Walter Osborne, NGI, 1983, no.23. (ii) Sheehy, 1974 no.158; 1983, no.30. (iii) Sheehy, 1983, no.43. (iv) Barra Boydell, Music and Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, 1985, p.11. (v) Boydell, ibid., illustrated p.12. (vi) 'The Hurdy Gurdy Boy' By William Gillard (Gorry Gallery, May 2012, no. 22) (vii) Adrian le Harival, National Gallery of Ireland, Acquisitions, 1986-88, NGI 1988, p.178 (viii) Information kindly given by Peter Murray.

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