Anglo-Irish tug-of-war over exquisite paintings finally ends

Compared with Boris Johnson’s Ulster-Scotland bridge or tunnel, or his roundabout under the Isle of Man, the post-Brexit paperwork needed to get paintings across the Irish Sea would presumably be relatively straightforward.

But delving deeper into the reader’s email revealed numerous insurmountable problems in a long-running Anglo-Irish argument over the ownership of a unique collection of 39 priceless Impressionist artworks.

The dispute began after the tragic sinking of the Lusitania in 1915.

The Cunard Line’s vast and luxurious ocean liner, RMS Lusitania, sank roughly 11 miles (18 km) off the Old Head of Kinsale on the southern coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.

On her 202nd trans-Atlantic crossing from New York to Liverpool with almost 2,000 souls on board, the magnificent vessel was hit by a torpedo fired from a German U-boat. The Lusitania sank in 18 minutes.

Approximately 1,200 people died, including 94 children.

One of the dead was Sir Hugh Lane, born in Cork in 1875 but raised in England.

His father was a rector, the Rev John Lane and his mother Adelaide was a sister of Lady Gregory.

Soon after his birth, the family moved to Cornwall.

From an early age Hugh immersed himself in the world of art and went on to work in galleries and travelled the world studying pictures wherever he went.

In his early twenties he became an art dealer and by the turn of the 20th century had established a hugely successful business in London, dealing predominantly in Old Master paintings.

Though his work entailed regular international travel he faithfully maintained his Irish roots, notably with his aunt, the writer Augusta, Lady Gregory of Coole Park, and her circle of literary and artistic friends including William Butler Yeats, Sean O’Casey, George Moore and John Synge.

Sir Hugh was devoted to establishing the world’s first municipal gallery of modern art in Dublin and to this end he mounted exhibitions and encouraged collectors to purchase and donate works to the proposed Irish gallery.

He also gathered his own collection of 39 mostly French Impressionist paintings including Renoir, Manet, Monet, Pissarro and Degas.

He loaned these to a temporary exhibition in Dublin in 1908, intending to donate them as soon as a permanent gallery was built.

W.B. Yeats wrote three poems in support of Sir Hugh’s project and two venues were designed, but neither was built.

Lane offered his 39 paintings on loan to the National Gallery, London, where they arrived in 1913.

In his will of the same year he bequeathed his paintings to the London gallery, but the trustees weren’t told.

In spring 1914 Lane became Director of the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) in Dublin and most of his collection went there.

Returning from business in America in April 1915 he was amongst almost the almost 2,000 dead when the Lusitania was torpedoed.

After his death it was discovered that Sir Hugh had made a codicil to his will revoking his original bequest to the London gallery, leaving the 39 pictures to Dublin instead, providing a suitable building be provided for them within five years of his death.

They were to form the core of the gallery he established in Dublin in 1908, today known as the Hugh Lane Gallery.

As the codicil was signed but not witnessed and thus was legally invalid, London became rightful owner of the collection, sparking a row that has continued, punctuated by various compromises, arrangements and agreements for over a century.

A campaign to return the paintings to Ireland was led by Sir Hugh’s Aunt, Lady Gregory, until she died in 1932.

In 1956 two Irish students stole one of the paintings from the Tate as an act of protest.

They pretended to be sketching some of the gallery’s paintings while noting the guards’ movements and routines.

When the time was right the students grabbed a canvas and jumped into a black cab, getting to Piccadilly Circus before the alarm was raised.

The painting was eventually handed in to the Irish embassy in London and then given back to the Tate.

Since the 1960s the collection has been exhibited in London and Dublin in a series of complicated, rotating loans.

In 2008, 38 of the 39 pictures were exhibited in Dublin celebrating the centenary of Lane’s founding of the city’s Municipal Gallery in Parnell Square.

(The missing artwork occurred because one of the frames was too big to fit into the Dublin building!)

But now, as announced in the reader’s email to Roamer last month - “the paintings are to cross the Irish Sea” - ending the tug of war.

The Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin and London’s National Gallery have agreed on a new partnership around the 39 paintings.

Now, 10 paintings will rotate in two groups of five, for five years in each location and 27 works given to Dublin on long-term loan will remain there permanently.

Two of the collection’s finest are Manet’s Le Concert aux Tuileries painted in 1862 and Renoir’s Umbrellas painted around 1881.

I look forward to seeing them ‘face-to-face’, in Dublin or London, but thanks to Covid-19, for the time being it’s virtual sightings only!