Harriet Wheelock / Monday 8 November 2010 Fresh from the Framers As well as its library and archive collections, the College owns a collection of art works. Mostly of former Fellows and Members, the collection contains works by many Irish artists working from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. During a recent survey of the collections a number of items were identified for preservation or conservation treatment, and the first three pieces have just come back from the framers. The first work is a pastel portrait of Sir John William Moore, by Sean O'Sullivan, signed and dated 1934. Sean O'Sullivan (1906-1964) was a leading Irish, mainly portrait, painter. Born in Dublin, he studied in Dublin, London and Paris, before moving back to Dublin in the 1920s. In Ireland he painted portraits of some of the leading figures of his day, and his works hang in the National Gallery of Ireland as well as other Irish Galleries. The subject of the portrait Sir John William Moore, was another native of Dublin. Born in 1845 he trained as a doctor at Trinity College Dublin and in Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital. Working at the Meath and Cork Street Fever Hospital, Moore published works on fever and climate, which was a passion for him. For over 50 years he took recording from his barometer, thermometer and measured the rainfall, his results being published in the Dublin Newspapers and the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. In 1900 he was knighted, and in 1912 appointed Physician-in-Ordinary to the King in Ireland, from 1898-1900 he was President of the College.[1] O'Sullivan's portrait was made when Moore was 89, just three years before his death in 1937. The second work is a portrait of an unknown gentleman by another Irish artist, John Butler Yeats. Yeats was born in county Down in 1839, probably best known as the father of Jack and William Butler Yeats; he was a talented painter in his own right, particularly in portrait work. His best known work is probably his portrait of his son William Butler Yeats, but he also painted portraits of leading Irish figures. The final work is a huge piece, an almost life sized drawing of the College Mace by Sir Frederick William Burton. Burton (1816-1900) was commission to design a mace for the College in 1850, it was probably no coincidence that Burton, then known mainly as a portrait artist, was a close friend of the College President William Stokes. Burton completed his first design in less than three weeks, although this drawing would not be completed until 1852. Burton received the sum of £50 for the drawing, and the College arranged for it to be framed in oak for display. The drawing was displayed at the Exhibition of Art, Manufacture and Industry held in Cork in the same year. The mace itself was made by West and Son of College Green to Burton's design, and was delivered in 1853.[2] Burton went on to become director of the National Gallery in London in 1874, and was responsible for many important additions to the collections, he was knighted in 1884. Of Burton's own works, the best known is probably 'The meeting on the Turret Stairs' painted in 1864, which is in the National Gallery of Ireland. Images; Portrait of Sir John William Moore by Sean O'Sullivan, RPCI 151 Portrait of an unknown man by John Butler Yeats, RCPI 135 Drawing of the College Mace by Sir Frederick William Burton, RCPI 353. 'The Meeting on the Turret Stairs', National Gallery of Ireland References: 1 C S Breathnach, 'John William Moore' in Irish Journal of Medical Science 1983, pp.69-71. 2 Widdess, History of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland (1963), pp.176-177