Rather like the Doyles or the Hones, the Barrets were an artistically talented family spanning more than one generation. The best-known today is the original member, George Barret senior, but a watercolour coming up for sale at Phillips in London next Tuesday serves as a reminder that he handed on his ability to several of his sons. Barret was born in Dublin, probably in the Liberties around 1732. Originally, like his father before him, he worked in the clothing trade but eventually became a pupil of Robert West at the Dublin Society's art school, where he was awarded first prize in the annual exhibition show. Even during this early period, he worked colouring pictures for a print-seller, Thomas Silcock on Nicholas Street.
But it would seem that, having come to the notice of Edmund Burke, Barret was encouraged to specialise in the study of nature and landscape, in which he became one of the foremost masters of the 18th century. Barret's pictures are of particularly interest because they reproduce specific and real locations rather than the imaginary views which had tended to be favoured by artists before this time. He is, therefore, in many respects a precursor of the romantic school and Irish practitioners such as William Ashford and Thomas Roberts.
Regretfully, Barret left this country in the early 1760s and settled in London where he found a larger clientele. Despite his considerable success (he was said to be earning £2,000 a year), he still managed to be declared bankrupt but, thanks to Burke's intercession, was appointed Master Painter to the Chelsea Hospital, a lucrative post that enabled him to survive.
Nevertheless, on his death in 1784, his family were left, according to Strickland, "in straitened circumstances" and the Royal Academy, which he had helped to found, granted his wife an annual pension.
No less than four of Barret's children followed their father into the same profession, although only one of them achieved similar renown. This was George Barret junior, one of the foremost watercolourists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Strickland says, "He began by painting in oil in much the same style as his father; but afterwards became celebrated for his drawings in water-colour, by which he made his reputation." Their charm derived from the combination of a number of features including a sense of poeticism and the effect of sunlight. This is certainly true of the example being sold by Phillips, even though the work is monochrome over pancil.
The picture shows a figure rowing on a lake amidst a mountainous landscape and is expected to fetch £200-£300 sterling. A founder member of the Old Water-colour Society in 1804, Barret junior regularly contributed to its exhibitions and those of the Royal Academy. He wrote a book called The Theory and Practice of Water-colour Painting elucidated in a series of Letters, which was published two years before his death in 1840. His entire life was spent in England and he therefore had little to do with Ireland. This explains why, despite the fame of his father, George Barret's work is so little seen here.
