Joseph Malachy Kavanagh RHA (1856-1918) Old Dublin, Marrowbone Lane Oil on canvas, 70 x 92.6cm (27½ x 36½'') Signed Provenance: Mrs. M. Hanlon, Dublin; and later in the collection of John P....

Joseph Malachy Kavanagh RHA (1856-1918) Old Dublin, Marrowbone Lane Oil on canvas, 70 x 92.6cm (27½ x 36½'') Signed Provenance: Mrs. M. Hanlon, Dublin; and later in the collection of John P. Reihill, Deepwell, Blackrock, Co. Dublin Exhibited: RHA Annual Exhibition, Dublin, 1918, Cat. No. 20 Literature: Joseph Malachy Kavanagh, Ethna Waldron, The Capuchin Annual, page 324, full page illustration page 322 Although older than Osborne, Kavanagh's career seemed to run side by side with that of Walter Osborne even before they set off together with Nathaniel Hill to study at Antwerp under Verlat in 1881. He is thought to have come to Brittany with Osborne in late 1882/early 1883 and painted in Quimperle, Dinan and Pont-Aven very similar subjects to those of Hill and Osborne.Writing in 1949 Thomas Mc Greevy,former Director of the National Gallery refers to Kavanagh in an article entitled ''Fifty years of Irish Painting'' :- '' Kavanagh had a wider range and more solid qualities than Osborne. But neither Henry Allan nor Kavanagh is sufficiently well represented in our public collections for it to be possible to form an adequate estimate of their achievement''. This is probably as true today as when it was written in 1949 . Ethna Waldron wrote of this work in 1968 :- In 1918, the year of his death , Kavanagh exhibited ''Old Marrowbone Lane'' at the Academy , a painting with his characteristic pinkish tinge in the stonework . This work is in a private collection in Dublin and the owner had for many years regarded it, quite understandably, as a scene in Belgium. Until its demolition Marrowbone Lane had, in fact , such pitched roofed houses .'' Marrowbone Lane was a tenement area just off Cork Street in the Liberties and was the scene of fierce fighting just two years before this picture was painted as the Jameson Distillery there,now also demolished, was occupied under the command of Eamonn Ceannt and Cathal Brugha during the Easter Rising in 1916.

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