40 watercolours and drawings by the shortlived celebrated Cork artist Daniel Macdonald for sale

A CACHE of 40 watercolours and drawings by the shortlived celebrated Cork artist Daniel Macdonald (1820-1853) is now on display at the Gorry Gallery in Dublin until April 13. Many of the works were executed on board the yacht Hebe in Cobh, shown here off Roches Point in a drawing by the artist.

They date to 1843-4, just prior to Macdonald’s departure to London. His father, James McDaniel (1788–1865), was a painter, caricaturist, teacher, scientist, and musician, deeply involved with the cultural life of early 19th-century Cork.

When Daniel was a boy, his father, then a McDaniel, discovered he was the 8th Baron Macdonald of Castleton, Isle of Skye, and reverted to the family name Macdonald.

Daniel Macdonald worked across genres including history painting, portraiture, still life, and landscape.

An acute observer of rural everyday life, his characters play music, dance, marry, make poitín, go to school and Mass, and fear the fairies.