A Collection of Drawings by Benjamin Woodward?

Cathal Dowd Smith
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2019
BA

Subject: Architecture
Country: Ireland
Period: 19th Century

10,000 words

The purpose of this study is to establish the authorship of a collection of drawings in the Royal Irish Academy hitherto attributed to one of Ireland’s foremost architects of the nineteenth century. Benjamin Woodward (1815-1861). This collection of 128 drawings of Irish antiquities displays a variety in subject-matter, treatment, style and finish that raises doubts as to the validity of the attribution to Woodward. The drawings are significant not least as part of the Academy collection, but also for what they can tell us about the burgeoning architectural study of antiquarian remains in the nineteenth century The study aims to broaden our understanding of this ‘collection’ and deals chiefly with the issues of attribution and provenance of these 128 drawings and does not claim to deal exhaustively with other questions.

Irish Georgian Society

Education Theses Register

A Collection of Drawings by Benjamin Woodward?