DLA004-0010  Transcription

2, ULSTER TERRACE,

STILLORGAN PARK,

CO. DUBLIN.

August 17.[19]05.

Dear Sir

As one of the Ladies committee formed to further the project for establishing a Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin, and is one much interested in the controversy about the small landscape

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attributed to Corot, might I ask you if it would be convenient for you to arrange an interview with me?

I am very anxious to hear your views about the picture, and also those of the Hungarian expert

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who recently examined it.^[1]

I have had a long talk with Sir Walter Armstrong^[2] about the picture which he seems convinced is of an earlier date than the time at which Meszoly^[3] began to paint- or to be known as

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a painter: I am anxious to know whether you share his views on this point.

I may mention that I have written articles on the collection for several papers – but of course I would not give your views unless you gave me authority to do so.

Faithfully Yours,

Ellen Duncan

Editorial Notes:

Letter concerning the controversy surrounding the authenticity of a Corot painting that the then Prince of Wales (subsequently George V) had chosen from the Forbes collection and presented as a gift to help Hugh Lane in his attempt to establish a gallery of modern art in Dublin. Following its exhibition in 1904, the "early Corot" was deemed by some to be the work of the Hungarian artist, Géza Mészöly. The controversy grew to "immense proportions" with artists including William Orpen and well-known London art world figures such as Martin Colnaghi and Lockett Agnew weighing in. The Hungarian expert at the time, Doctor Béla Lázár, was of the opinion that it was neither a Corot nor a Mészöly, but a touched-up copy of a Mészöly painting in the Hungarian National Gallery’s collection. See the undated DLA009-0006, letter from Doctor Lázár to de László in which Lázár writes that his expert opinion on the picture has been sought; he asks that de László accompany him to compare the two pictures. For a discussion on this controversy, see John Hutchinson, ‘Sir Hugh Lane and the Gift of the Prince of Wales to the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin’, in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 68, no. 272 (Winter, 1979), pp. 277-87. The painting remains in the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane’s collection and is presently catalogued as ‘Peasants by the Lake’ and attributed to Mészöly (reg 549).

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