The Merchants Arch, Dublin

Returning to Dublin in the Edwardian years, one location fascinated Orpen above all others – this was the ancient ‘Merchant’s Arch’ connecting Crown Alley with the Quays and the Ha’penny Bridge. Orpen used it as a setting for the dubious activities depicted in two major oils – The Knacker’s Yard 1909 (National Gallery of Ireland) and The Dublin Brawl, c. 1910 (Private Collection). Here he proposes a third motif – a group of street performers with a bear, in part derived from Study for ‘The Wild Beast’ 1907 (Pyms Gallery, 1983, no. 27). This unruly gang generated another major sequence of paintings and drawings involving performing bears.

Professor Kenneth McConkey