IRISH ARTS Rediscovering Seamus Murphy Thomas Phillips ...

Harmony
30 Paintings
Chaos Oil on canvas 70 x 70cm
TIBOR CERVENAK
26th April - 5th May 2007
gallery
?\ fY% ^\ W 467 Antrim Road, Belfast
\21 I 1 V# * Tel 028 9077 8777 (048 from
ROI)
Open Mon - Sat 9.00am - 5.00pm, Thurs to 8.00pm WWW.emergallery.COm
Crawf
llery
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Crawford Art Gallery I Emmet Place I Cork
BALCERZAK
www.wilhelrtibalcerzak.com
T: +353 (0)21 4907855 I E: crawfordgallery@eircom.net
www.crawfordartgallery.com
Painted by Francis Bindon around 1735, this portrait is a sympathetic portrayal of the writer
Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal and The Drapier's Letters. The
portrait shows Swift at a time when several of his close friends, including John Gay and John
Arbuthnot, had died, while the great love of his life, Esther Johnson, or "Stella", had died ten
years before, leaving Swift increasingly disillusioned and facing a lonely old age. The artist, a
friend of Swift, conveys much of the sadness of these years in this down-to-earth portrait.
Born in Co. Clare, Bindon travelled extensively in Italy, and afterwards studied with Godfrey
Kneller in London. A landowner and member of the Royal Dublin Society, he was
independently wealthy and therefore not obliged to produce glamourous images of his sitters.
Swift, who had moved to Ireland from his native England, had come to identify with his
adopted land, and led several public campaigns against measures he thought would damage
Ireland's economy. He noted, with characteristic acerbity, in his diary for June 1735 "I have
been fool enough to sit for my portrait at full-length by Mr. Bindon.' However, this half-length
canvas, showing the satirist without the wig so common in eighteenth century portraits, was
painted probably in the same year and is a sensitive portrayal of the writer. Apart from
churchmen such as Dr. Delany and Archbishop Cobbe, Bindon is thought to have painted the
blind harper Turlough O'Carolan, in a portrait now in the National Gallery of Ireland. He also
studied architecture with Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, and went on to design country houses,
including Bessborough, Woodstock and Castle Morres, in Co. Kilkenny. This portrait was kept
by Jonathan Swift in the Deanery of St. Patricks and was bequeathed to his housekeeper Mrs.
Ridgeway, in whose family it was preserved for many years. It was acquired by the Crawford
Art Gallery in January 2007, to mark the accession to the status of National Cultural Institution,
with funds provided by the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.
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IRISH ARTS REVIEW SPRING 2007
FRANCIS BINDON c.1690-1765
Portrait of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)