Lot Essay
Professor Bodkin (loc. cit.) considered the present work to be 'Osborne's masterpiece. I cannot think of any landscape by which he might be more fitly represented.
It was painted at Foxrock, near Dublin, towards the close of summer. The inextricable tangle of weeds and grasses in the foreground is wonderfully rendered both as to line and colour. Black-and-white goats, red-and-white cattle, the blue-shirted boy, the pink-frocked smaller child, the Thornbush itself, are all placed with great skill to emphasise the suggestion of a confused and spacious wilderness. The composition of the pictures is as subtle as it is effective. The way in which the paint is laid is accomplished in the extreme; and yet conveys a first impression of delightful, almost careless ease'.
The present owner's father-in-law, the late Dr. Cremin, was a Dublin doctor and keen collector of paintings. This was his favourite painting and it hung in his surgery above his American oak roll-top desk at 120 St. Stephen's Green. He also owned another painting by Osborne, 'In St. Stephen's Green' (Private Collection).
It was painted at Foxrock, near Dublin, towards the close of summer. The inextricable tangle of weeds and grasses in the foreground is wonderfully rendered both as to line and colour. Black-and-white goats, red-and-white cattle, the blue-shirted boy, the pink-frocked smaller child, the Thornbush itself, are all placed with great skill to emphasise the suggestion of a confused and spacious wilderness. The composition of the pictures is as subtle as it is effective. The way in which the paint is laid is accomplished in the extreme; and yet conveys a first impression of delightful, almost careless ease'.
The present owner's father-in-law, the late Dr. Cremin, was a Dublin doctor and keen collector of paintings. This was his favourite painting and it hung in his surgery above his American oak roll-top desk at 120 St. Stephen's Green. He also owned another painting by Osborne, 'In St. Stephen's Green' (Private Collection).