Presenting a picture of the illustrious Doyles

Last June, the National Gallery of Ireland held an exhibition of the works of Richard Doyle, noted 19th-century water-colourist and illustrator, along with examples of art by other members of his family. Now more of his work goes on show from next Tuesday at Dublin's Molesworth Gallery.

The first Doyle to achieve renown was John, who was born in Dublin in 1797. He was a pupil of both Gaspare Gabrielli (best-known for his mural decorations at Lyons, Co Kildare) and the miniaturist John Comerford. Having achieved some success in Ireland, Doyle moved to London at the age of 24 but failed to make much impression there until 1827 when he became a political caricaturist, thereafter known as "HB."

The art historian Strickland summarised Doyle's work in this field as being "related to the political events and the political men of the time, treated without the exaggeration and coarseness of the caricatures of Gillray, and drawn with a humour never descending to vulgarity." John Doyle died in 1868 and his spirit of charming whimsy as an artist was inherited by four sons, James, Richard, Henry Edward and Charles; it is the second and fourth of these who are represented at the Molesworth Gallery.

James Doyle started life as a painter but his primary interest was history and genealogy, as represented by the three-volume His- torical Baronage of England he published in 1886. Henry Edward Doyle worked as an illustrator but his most important work was the decoration of the chapel in the Dominican Convent at Cabra.

Strickland describes him as "a man who had the knack of getting on in the world", and in 1869, Henry Doyle became director of the National Gallery of Ireland, a position he was to hold for the next 23 years until his death.

John Doyle's youngest son, Charles, was born in London in 1823 but at the age of 19 moved to Scotland and remained there for the rest of his life. Illustrations were his forte but he never enjoyed good health and died at the age of 61; his son was the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Probably the most commercially successful Doyle was Richard, a distinguished contributor from 1843 to Punch magazine for which he designed the cover which remained in use for more than a century until 1956.

Richard Doyle was precociously gifted; at the age of 12, he produced a series of comic illustrations to Homer. By the time he was 19, he had begun his association with Punch which only ended in 1850 because of what he believed to be the anti-Catholic bias of the publication.

After that, he concentrated on book illustration for work by Thackeray and Ruskin, among others. The kindly nature of his character is apparent in the fairy pictures on which he concentrated, particularly in later life, and for which he is now best remembered. When he died in 1883, the London Times obituary notice observed: "Few men had more friends, and even those who only knew him by his drawings could hardly help feeling an affection for a man who possessed such a fund of fancy and kindly humour."

Charles Doyle is represented by 12 drawings and watercolours in the present exhibition, and his brother, Richard, by two. The show also contains work in the same media by a number of other 19th- and early 20th-century Irish artists, including Hugh Thomson, John Carey and Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford. It continues at the Molesworth Gallery until Friday, April 7th.