1859, Erskine Nicol, Donnybrook Fair -- National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin)
From the museum label: This is the most ambitious of many pictorial representations of Donnybrook Fair, an annual event that ran for six hundred years until its ultimate abolition in 1868. By the nineteenth century, it drew vast crowds from the country to the outskirts of Dublin for the sale of livestock and, more famously, the provision of entertainment. As Nicol indicates, it was also widely associated with unruliness and excess. The artist assumes the role of gentleman observer by placing himself, finely dressed and in the company of elegant companions (including his wife), in a clearing in the crowd. The painting was almost certainly inspired by William Powell Frith's celebrated Derby Day (Tate), shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1858.
1859, Erskine Nicol, Donnybrook Fair -- National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin)
From the museum label: This is the most ambitious of many pictorial representations of Donnybrook Fair, an annual event that ran for six hundred years until its ultimate abolition in 1868. By the nineteenth century, it drew vast crowds from the country to the outskirts of Dublin for the sale of livestock and, more famously, the provision of entertainment. As Nicol indicates, it was also widely associated with unruliness and excess. The artist assumes the role of gentleman observer by placing himself, finely dressed and in the company of elegant companions (including his wife), in a clearing in the crowd. The painting was almost certainly inspired by William Powell Frith's celebrated Derby Day (Tate), shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1858.