The Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) is delighted to share that the Royal Irish Academy Library has published a new collection in the Repository – the Gabriel Beranger Antiquarian Watercolours Collection.
Ninety-six of Gabriel Beranger’s antiquarian watercolour drawings of principal antique buildings of Ireland – including castles, monasteries and landscapes from various Irish counties dated approx. 1770-1799 – are now available to view in the DRI Repository and the Watercolour World.
In addition to his own original works, Beranger also made copies of works by other artists. Such albums of antiquities, depicting picturesque ruined castles and friaries, would have been popular additions to the libraries of the gentry in the late eighteenth century.
Beranger’s Irish antiquarian drawings record many buildings that no longer survive, while others have been changed or restored since the mid nineteenth century. His sketches are a record of the appearance and condition of those antiquities as they existed in the second half of the eighteenth century.
These newly-deposited drawings – now preserved for long-term access – complement two smaller postcard-sized albums previously published online entitled ‘Rambles through the County of Dublin and some of the neighbouring ones‘, depicting scenes in Dublin, Meath, Roscommon, and Wicklow, and ‘Rambles thro’ the Country of Dublin and some others in Ireland‘, featuring illustrations of scenery and monuments from Dublin, Mayo, Meath, and Wicklow.
Read more about Gabriel Beranger and the collection on the RIA website. You can explore the full collection in the DRI Repository. You can keep up to date with all of DRI’s new collections by signing up to our newsletter.
