hiefly for export. With all our acknowledged artistic
capacity, we have not, except in one notable instance, produced a
cumulative art effect. The history of Irish art is almost uniformly a
depressing narrative. During a comparatively brief period in the
eighteenth century--significantly enough, it was while the country
enjoyed a short spell of national life--there was something like a
national patronage of the artist, and the result is visible in the
noble public buildings and beautiful houses of the Irish capital,
with their universally admired mantelpieces, doors, ceilings,
fanlights, ironwork, and carvings. In short, while Ireland had even a
partly unfettered control of her own concerns, the arts were
generously encouraged by her government and by the wealthy
individual. When other European capitals were mere congeries of
rookeries, Dublin, the centre of Irish political life, possessed
splendid streets, grandly planned. But there was little solidarity
among the artistic fraternity. Various associations of artists were
formed, which held together fairly well until the flight of the
resident town gentry after the Union, and many admirable artists were
trained in the schools of the Royal Dublin Society, but, since the
opening of the nineteenth century, there has been almost no visible
art effort in Dublin. True, there have been many fine artists, who
have made a struggle to fix themselves in Dublin, but, as with the
Royal Hibernian Academy, of which the best of them were members, the
struggle has been a painful agony. Usually the artist migrated to
London to join the large group of Irishmen working there; a few
others went to America and obtained an honored place in her art
annals. Those who went to England secured in many cases the highest
rewards of the profession. Several, like Barry, Hone, Barrett, and
Cotes, were founders or early members of the Royal Academy; one, Sir
Martin Shee, became its President. Nevertheless, many distinguished
artists remained in Dublin, where the arts of portrait-painting and
engraving were carried to a high pitch of excellence.

This record must necessarily be of a chronological character, and can
only take note of those whose works have actual value and interest,
historical or other. Edward Luttrell (1650-1710) did some excellent
work in crayon or pastel, while Garrett Murphy (fl. 1650-1716),
Stephen Slaughter (d. 1765), Francis Bindon (d. 1765), and James
Latham (1696-1747), have eac