The Dublin Civic Portrait Collection

Patronage, politics and patriotism, 1603–2013

Mary Clark

'[A] most handsome volume. Each portrait is rendered in full colour ... This book will appeal to a wide readership –  those interested in the lords mayor, in the portrait painters, changing fashions (especially in wigs), images of self, frame makers, modern-day conservators, art exhibitions and present whereabouts of the works in question. The ample bibliography will provide further reading material for those interested in following will provide further reading material for those interested in following up any aspect of this unputdownable volume. The author and Four Courts Press are ... to be congratulated', Aideen Ireland, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (2016).

‘A richly illustrated work that races the organic growth of the collection and reconstructs its long and decidedly troubled history … the civic collection contains some superb portraiture in excellent condition, including works by George Romney, Thomas Hickey, Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Sir Thomas Lawrence, John B. Yeats, Seán Keating and Derek Hill, and we can now appreciate them thanks to Clark’s always insightful and often intriguing commentary’, David Dickson, Irish Arts Review (Autumn 2016).

‘A lavishly illustrated work that combines a guide to this wonderful art collection, an art history, an overview of the political history of the City and a treasure trove of excellently research biographies … This is an exceptionally beautiful publication that brings together the stories behind the civic portraiture works of some of Ireland’s finest artists and sculptors. This is not just and art history, it is a work of art in itself that introduces the citizens of Dublin to their own Civic Portrait Collection’, Michael Merrigan, Ireland's Genealogical Gazette (August 2016). 

'As Dublin city archivist, Mary Clark, is ideally placed to explain how these portraits interact with their political contexts. While some portraits were lost over centuries, whether by accident or design, Clark's volume reproduces the fifty-one that remain. Her coherent analysis of the collection, and of Dublin's changing fortunes, allows the reader to consider the portraits in a way that the sitters, and those who commissioned them, never did ...Clark's introduction and individual descriptions are full of interesting facts ... this handsome and informative analysis of the municipal collection.', Ciarán Wallace, Irish Historical Studies, (May 2019).