WILLIAM ASHFORD PRHA (1746 - 1824)

Title: Wooded Landscape with Figures, Livestock and Distant Ruins, County Wicklow (1809) Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed and Dated Lower Centre Provenance: Christie's, London, 20 November 1981, Lot 75; James Adam and Sons, 20 November, 1986, Lot 118; Christie's, London, The Irish Sale, 14 May, 2004, Lot 23; Private Collection Literature: A. Crookshank, 'A Life devoted to Landscape Painting: William Ashford', Irish Arts Review Yearbook, vol. 11, 1995, P. 130, No. 77 Framed Depicting a wooded landscape with figures, mountains and ruins, this painting by William Ashford is a classic ‘Claudean’ composition. Beneath a placid sky, the central group—a herdsman, his dog, and a companion—guide cattle and goats along a road. On either side, the sinuous trunks and dark foliage of trees provide a frame for the figures on the road. In the distance, smaller figures can be seen, adding a sense of depth to the composition. A ruined building in the distance—a monastery or abbey—provides a momento mori, or reminder of the passing of ages. Wending their way slowly past a stream, the cattle and goats evoke a pastoral Georgic existence. These elements in Ashford’s paintings are largely derived from the seventeenth century canvases of Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa, works that were in turn inspired by Classical ruins in the countryside around Rome. Although the landscape depicted here is an imagined view, the mountain in the distance resembles the Sugarloaf, and so this work may relate to Ashford’s paintings of the Powerscourt estate in Co. Wicklow A leading painter in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Ireland, William Ashford was born in Birmingham. In 1764 he moved to Dublin, where he lived for the next six decades. He was employed in the Ordnance Office in Dublin Castle, a government job that involved inspecting arms and munitions stores around the country. Ashford sketched as he travelled, developing his skills as a topographical artist. However his initial paintings were mainly flower pieces and still lives, and it was not until 1772 that he began to exhibit landscape paintings, at the Society of Artists of Ireland. From then on he became celebrated for his idealised landscapes. The first Earl of Charleville commissioned him to paint a set of five views of Charleville Forest, and he was also commissioned by Richard, seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam to paint six views of Mount Merrion Park in Dublin. Unlike many of the generation that succeeded him, Ashford was neither a revolutionary nor a Romantic painter, but rather one who delighted in depicting peaceful estates and houses. Highly esteemed in his own lifetime, in 1813 he was elected President of the Society of Artists of Ireland, and a decade later became President of the newly-founded Royal Hibernian Academy. He died at his home in Dublin, in 1824. Dr. Peter Murray, August 2025 Image: 52.5 x 74 cm. Framed: 65 x 86.5 cm. PICTURES AND PRINTS Tuesday 16th September 2025 19:48:20