Richard Collins: Resourceful and intelligent rooks celebrated in watercolour

Five of the 17 pictures by Mildred Anne Butler at the National Gallery of Ireland depict rooks. She also painted cattle, steam-powered threshing machines, and doves

Detail from Mildred Anne Butler, Shades of Evening, 1904. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland 

Two handsome rooks greet you at the entrance to a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland. Loaned by the Natural History Museum, the mounted pair guard a collection of large-scale watercolours by a painter who had a soft spot for these birds.

Mildred Anne Butler was born in 1858 at Kilmurry House near Thomastown County Kilkenny. Apart from visits to London Paris and Cornwall, she lived her entire life in this 18th-century Palladian mansion, with its fields, woods, and a large pond. Not having to earn a living, she began painting rural scenes. Cattle, steam-powered threshing machines, and doves, were among her subjects.