THOMAS ROBERTS | A wooded landscape in Powerscourt Demesne, with a brace of fallow bucks and a doe

The Earl of Yarborough, Brocklesby Park, Lincolnshire, by 1877;  Anonymous sale ('From a Private Collection'), New York, Christie's, 15 January 1988, lot 46;

There acquired by the present owner.

Possibly London, Society of Artists, 1775, either no. 404 (as 'A View in Lord Powerscourt's Park'), or no. 405 (as 'ditto'). 

W. Laffan and B. Rooney, Thomas Roberts. Landscape and patronage in eighteenth century Ireland, Tralee 2009, pp. 384–85, no. 56, reproduced in colour. 

The following condition report is provided by Henry Gentle who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Thomas Roberts Landscape with deer Oil on canvas, in period gilt frame with some chips. The original canvas is lined. There is a slight loss of tension and a collection of debris between bottom stretcher bar and canvas has caused minor distortion along the bottom edge. The paint layer is well preserved. Minor flaking to a small area of the paint layer, upper left corner, needs addressing. A recent damage to the back of the canvas has caused a small dent in the trees in the centre of the composition. Under raking light a noticeable vertical canvas warp to the canvas can be detected. The varnish is discoloured and degraded and its removal will reveal paint in very good original condition; the paint texture is well preserved and the fine details are crisp. Very slight abrasion to the paint layer can be detected in one or two places, e.g. the trunk of the tree on the right hand edge. There is very little evidence of any prior conservation intervention. Removal of the varnish will bring back a depth to the composition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The Powerscourt estate, at Enniskerry in County Wicklow, situated between the confluence of the Dargle and Glencree rivers to the south and the Glencullen river to the north, in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains, is one of the great landscape gardens of the world. Home to the Wingfield family, Viscounts Powerscourt, in the eighteenth century the demesne was a favourite subject for artists and much celebrated for its sublime scenery, waterfalls and distant views of the fabled Sugarloaf Mountain. The leading Irish landscape painter of the eighteenth century and an artist of exceptional talent, Thomas Roberts was born in Waterford. The eldest son of the architect John Roberts, his maternal grandfather was a French army Major who had served under William III in Ireland. Roberts entered the Dublin schools in 1763, where he was taught by James Mannin, before being apprenticed to the landscape painter George Mullins. Mullins also ran a pub in Dublin and it is reported by Pasquin that Roberts earned his keep painting over the black eyes and scars of those proprietors of his master tap-room who had been brawling the evening before. An artist of great talent, he was also a pupil of John Butts, and tempered the style of Vernet with Dutch elements.  

A victim of tuberculosis for most of his adult life, between 1766 and 1773 Roberts exhibited fifty-six works at the Society of Artist, gaining a reputation almost immediately as the most brilliant landscape painter of his era in Ireland. His career was tragically cut short, however, when, in 1778, he travelled to Lisbon in an effort to assuage his condition and died there the same year at the age of just twenty-eight.

During his short-lived but prolific career Roberts was patronised by many of the leading figures of the Irish establishment, including the Duke of Leinster, the Earl of Ross, Viscount Cremorne and the Veseys of Lucan. Possibly his most influential patron, however, was Simon, 1st Earl Harcourt, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1772 and 1777. A leading aesthete, Harcourt had founded the Society of Dilettanti with Sir Francis Dashwood in 1734, and was the first major patron of Paul Sandby, the leading English landscape painter of the same generation. The Earl commissioned at least two landscapes from Roberts, which are among the artists most exceptional works, and it is believed that it may well have been through Harcourt that he was introduced to English patronage.