Feeding the Chickens (1885)• Oil on Canvas• 91cm x 71.5cm

(3513/16 in x 281/8 in) • Signed and Dated

“Walter Osborne/85” (lower left corner)

• Up for auction in 2012 estimated €500,000-€700,000 but didn’t sell

Travel through England

• Early 1884 travelled through East Anglia and Lincolnshire

• Accompanied by two friends Nathaniel Hill and Edward Stott

Visit to Worcestershire

• Summer 1884 Osborne in Worcestershire

• Visited Little Northton near Evesham in October

• Painted Feeding the Chickens

Feeding the Chickens• Osborne regarded as an impressionist• This is a naturalist painting• Work is more romantic, displaying sharp detail

usually lost in impressionist works and using exquisite skill to vividly capture a natural scene.

• Influenced by Bastien-Lepage who told Osborne to look for old world themes and express them in a modern way (Professor Kenneth McConkey)

• Example of plein-air painting

The painting itself• Depicts a child wearing an

embroidered bonnet and holding a basket of grain, surrounded by a brood of hens.

• The girl is young but self-assured, with her solemn, serious expression

• Been described as having an atmospheric palette, with dappled sunlight and a combination of sumptuous textures and tones (Charles O’Brien, head of Bonhams 19th Century Paintings Department)

• Osborne's 'Feeding the Chickens' on view in Dublin: Bonhams' Charles O'Brien

Problems faced by Osborne• Wrote to his father on 12th October 1884

• “Now I am pretty far advanced on a kit-kat of a girl in a sort of farmyard…The figure of the girl which is a little over two feet high is coming towards finish”

• “the immediate foreground with poultry is merely sketched in as yet. The fowl are very troublesome, and I have made some sketches but will have to do a lot more as they form rather an important part of the composition.”

• Osborne then asked his father to see if he can find the sketches of chickens he had made in Brittany the previous year

• “The weather, I am sorry to say has been bitterly cold the last week, so much so that my model nearly fainted and I had to send her home”

Assessment• The rural theme was popular at the time

and widely echoed in works by many of Osborne’s contemporaries

• The painting is regarded as “a remarkable example of the dramatic change that Irish painting underwent towards the end of the 19th century, with artists increasingly being influenced by movements in continental Europe” (Charles O’Brien, head of Bonhams 19th Century Paintings

Department)

Life in the Streets, Hard Times • In 1892 Osborne returned to live in Dublin. He

worked from his family home in Rathmines• He began painting a series of paintings entitled

‘Life in the Streets, Hard Times’• Osborne’s reputation was enormously enhanced

when he began painting these street scenes in Dublin.

• The downtrodden streets provided Osborne with a seemingly endless supply of motifs and images

Fish Market, Patrick Street

Details• Oil on Canvas• 59.7x80 cms • Dated 1893• Currently in the Dublin City Gallery,

the Hugh Lane, Dublin• Painted from preparatory sketches• Possible that Osborne also worked

from photographs

The Painting• The Fish Market, Patrick Street, is full of

small and exquisite details. • The faces of the woman seated behind the

fish stall, and the girl standing just in front of it, are softly rendered.

• The bowl right at the centre of the canvas in the foreground shines out, reminiscent of a Dutch-style still-life painting

• In the background, we can see other market stalls selling everything from baskets to joints of meat.

Technique and Influence• The Fish Market, Patrick Street, contains

gritty, realistic tones• The style of this painting is Impressionistic,• Osborne’s eye for detail is evident in the still-life

elements on the table in the foreground and the sides of meat hanging in the background.

• He empathised with working people and the figure of the woman, engrossed in her work, is beautifully rendered.

• He excelled at painting children too without being overtly sentimental.