Title - The Game of Marbles

Artist - Richard Thomas Moynan

Moynan was born in Dublin and first studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons, before attending the Metropolitan School of Art with Roderic O’Connor. He trained at the Antwerp Academy between 1883 and 1885 where he won first prize in painting from life. Whilst there, Moynan shared lodgings with fellow Irish artist Henry Allan. He also spent two years in Paris and finally returned to Dublin in 1888. He was employed for a time by Dublin newspaper 'The Union' as a political cartoonist under the pseudonym ‘Lex’, but hoped to become renowned for large scale genre paintings and was well regarded for his portraiture. He exhibited regularly at the RHA between 1880 and 1905. He was the principal recorder of Dublin, city and county, in the late Victorian era, fascinated by outlying villages such as Shanganagh, Shankill and Leixlip, and the thatched hamlets that lay along the earth roads that lead from Dublin to the countryside. He was influenced by Osborne in his portrayal of naturalistic scenes of village life, and his cultivated naivety belies a keen eye for detail and composition.