Margaret Stokes collection
Reference code
STM
Title
Margaret Stokes collection
Date
1870s-1880s
Level of description
fonds
Extent and format
1 box and 1 volume
Scope and content
The background to Stokes’s work is given in ed. T. ó Raifeartaigh, The Royal Irish Academy: A bicentennial history 1785–1985, Dublin 1985 [SAL shelfmark CG.3.D]
A useful summary, including a list of her major publications, is also provided via https://www.ria.ie/news/library-library-blog/margaret-stokes-antiquarian-scholar-artists-eye
The context in which she worked is elaborated in N. Nicghabhann and C.M. Thomas, ‘Margaret McNair Stokes (1832–1900): Negotiating cultural values within nineteenth century Irish antiquarian discourse’, History, October 2021, online at
https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.lonlib.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1111/1468-229X.13200
This, however, states that her practice of overpainting photographs began in the 1890s (it began in the 1870s or earlier).
Most, probably 21 of the mounted works in STM/01, are painted over photographic prints, but many are so densely coloured that this is not immediately obvious. One sheet, Irish Book mounts, is only partly coloured, showing how the photographic print acted as a base. A comparison between Margaret Stokes’s Lismore Crozier and a photographic reproduction of the same object in Adolf Mahr, Christian Art in Ancient Ireland, 2 vols 1932, 1941 (II, plate 94) demonstrates the extent to which Stokes sharpened up the details and added information from her observation of the actual object. A printed trade label affixed to the mount of An Irish Crozier is for William A. Mercer, photographer, of 19 Belgrave Square East, Rathmines, Dublin; the trade stamp of photographer W.G. Moore of Dublin is on the back of the mount of The Clonmacnoise Crozier (uncoloured photograph). William George Moore was active as a photographer at 11 Sackville Street, Dublin, between 1880 and 1923.
In 1868 W.F. Wakeman was engaged by the Royal Irish Academy to catalogue the recently deposited collection of the late George Petrie (1789-1866). He thanked Petrie’s daughters and Margaret Stokes ‘our rising authority’ for their assistance (ó Raifeartaigh, p. 130). In the same year, 1868, Stokes sought permission to have photographs made of the RIA collections (ibid. pp. 144-45). The work was carried out by William Mercer, whose prints (160 different images in total) were offered for sale to scholars and the public from 1874 at one shilling each, or ten shillings for twelve.
After the death of Edwin Wyndham Quin, 3rd Earl of Dunraven (1812–1871), Margaret Stokes edited and completed his major book, Notes on Irish Architecture, 2 vols, Dublin 1875, 1877 [SAL shelfmark B 34W 2]. Dunraven’s son, in the Preface, says that Stokes was ‘with my father in many of his Irish tours’ (Dunraven, I, p. xv), as was her father Dr William Stokes and William Mercer, the photographer. These tours took place in each of the summers of 1866 – 1869. For the publication Mercer provided 125 remarkable photographs. The photographic prints in the book, which are mounted and bound in, are identified as Autotypes in the pre-printed captions. Stokes, in the preface to her own Early Christian Art Ireland (1887) says that Ireland owes much to the Earl of Dunraven, who ‘with indefatigable energy, sought out and photographed all the typical examples of her ancient monuments throughout the country’, making no reference to Mercer. Since her own role within the field of archaeology and illustration was often overlooked it seems odd that she, in turn, appears to have downplayed the photographer’s skills. The letterpress printing for Notes on Irish Architecture was carried out by the Chiswick Press, an arm of George Bell & Sons, London, specialist publishers of art books. Stokes also provided drawings for 13 of the wood engraved vignette illustrations for volume I (see lists, Dunraven, I, pp. ix-x) and 8 for volume II (ibid., II, pp. ix-xi). It was probably for her editorship of Dunraven’s book that Stokes was elected to honorary membership of the Royal Irish Academy in 1876. It was said of her that she ‘laboured with extraordinary enthusiasm and scholarly zeal. No trouble was too great for her … to elucidate the growth of Celtic art.’ (ó Raifeartaigh, p. 145)
The publishers George Bell & Sons of London produced Stokes’s own Early Christian Architecture in Ireland (1878) [not SAL library] and the jointly-authored A.N. Didron and M. Stokes, Christian Iconography: or, The History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages, 1886 [SAL shelfmark 153a].
Following her donation of drawings, photographs and overpainted photographs to the SAL in 1882 and 1886, Stokes presented several publications to the library, including her Notes on the Cross of Cong, Dublin 1895 [SAL shelfmark 114e] which contains a coloured frontispiece and tailpiece illustrations after the SAL originals. Tipped in at the front of Notes on the Cross of Cong is a slip of paper embossed ‘Carrig Breac / Lowth’, inscribed, ‘Presented to the Library of the / Society of Antiquaries London / by Margaret Stokes / July 25/95’. The book was printed by Dublin University Press for private circulation, 224 copies, 24 of which were lettered A-Z for presentation, the SAL copy being ‘U’. The two coloured lithographs, produced in Frankfurt, are of exceptional quality.
Margaret Stokes’s High Crosses of Castledermot and Durrow, Dublin 1898 [SAL shelfmark 110f] was intended to be the first of a series on stone crosses. It is a less sumptuous production than Notes on the Cross of Cong. It contains several wood engraved vignettes, one photogravure plate and 12 large photomechanical reproductions after retouched platinotype prints to support 26 pages of text. Stokes described how she used rubbings and photographs taken at carefully-chosen times of day to retrieve as much detail as possible from the worn stone relief decoration and lettering of the Castledermot and Durrow crosses (Royal Irish Academy manuscript, RIA.M 12L.36). She then enhanced large format platinotype prints, using watercolour and bodycolour, possibly and/or ink, to provide originals for black and white photographic reproduction. A number of her untouched and retouched platinotype photographs of stone crosses are in the Royal Irish Academy collection (N. Nicghabhann and C.M. Thomas, 2021, figs 1, 2).
Stokes presented her The holed-stone Cross at Moone, London 1899 [SAL shelfmark Tr 171*], to the SAL in November 1899, see Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, second series XVIII, 1901, p.1, gifts recorded at meeting of 23 November 1899.
A useful summary, including a list of her major publications, is also provided via https://www.ria.ie/news/library-library-blog/margaret-stokes-antiquarian-scholar-artists-eye
The context in which she worked is elaborated in N. Nicghabhann and C.M. Thomas, ‘Margaret McNair Stokes (1832–1900): Negotiating cultural values within nineteenth century Irish antiquarian discourse’, History, October 2021, online at
https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.lonlib.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1111/1468-229X.13200
This, however, states that her practice of overpainting photographs began in the 1890s (it began in the 1870s or earlier).
Most, probably 21 of the mounted works in STM/01, are painted over photographic prints, but many are so densely coloured that this is not immediately obvious. One sheet, Irish Book mounts, is only partly coloured, showing how the photographic print acted as a base. A comparison between Margaret Stokes’s Lismore Crozier and a photographic reproduction of the same object in Adolf Mahr, Christian Art in Ancient Ireland, 2 vols 1932, 1941 (II, plate 94) demonstrates the extent to which Stokes sharpened up the details and added information from her observation of the actual object. A printed trade label affixed to the mount of An Irish Crozier is for William A. Mercer, photographer, of 19 Belgrave Square East, Rathmines, Dublin; the trade stamp of photographer W.G. Moore of Dublin is on the back of the mount of The Clonmacnoise Crozier (uncoloured photograph). William George Moore was active as a photographer at 11 Sackville Street, Dublin, between 1880 and 1923.
In 1868 W.F. Wakeman was engaged by the Royal Irish Academy to catalogue the recently deposited collection of the late George Petrie (1789-1866). He thanked Petrie’s daughters and Margaret Stokes ‘our rising authority’ for their assistance (ó Raifeartaigh, p. 130). In the same year, 1868, Stokes sought permission to have photographs made of the RIA collections (ibid. pp. 144-45). The work was carried out by William Mercer, whose prints (160 different images in total) were offered for sale to scholars and the public from 1874 at one shilling each, or ten shillings for twelve.
After the death of Edwin Wyndham Quin, 3rd Earl of Dunraven (1812–1871), Margaret Stokes edited and completed his major book, Notes on Irish Architecture, 2 vols, Dublin 1875, 1877 [SAL shelfmark B 34W 2]. Dunraven’s son, in the Preface, says that Stokes was ‘with my father in many of his Irish tours’ (Dunraven, I, p. xv), as was her father Dr William Stokes and William Mercer, the photographer. These tours took place in each of the summers of 1866 – 1869. For the publication Mercer provided 125 remarkable photographs. The photographic prints in the book, which are mounted and bound in, are identified as Autotypes in the pre-printed captions. Stokes, in the preface to her own Early Christian Art Ireland (1887) says that Ireland owes much to the Earl of Dunraven, who ‘with indefatigable energy, sought out and photographed all the typical examples of her ancient monuments throughout the country’, making no reference to Mercer. Since her own role within the field of archaeology and illustration was often overlooked it seems odd that she, in turn, appears to have downplayed the photographer’s skills. The letterpress printing for Notes on Irish Architecture was carried out by the Chiswick Press, an arm of George Bell & Sons, London, specialist publishers of art books. Stokes also provided drawings for 13 of the wood engraved vignette illustrations for volume I (see lists, Dunraven, I, pp. ix-x) and 8 for volume II (ibid., II, pp. ix-xi). It was probably for her editorship of Dunraven’s book that Stokes was elected to honorary membership of the Royal Irish Academy in 1876. It was said of her that she ‘laboured with extraordinary enthusiasm and scholarly zeal. No trouble was too great for her … to elucidate the growth of Celtic art.’ (ó Raifeartaigh, p. 145)
The publishers George Bell & Sons of London produced Stokes’s own Early Christian Architecture in Ireland (1878) [not SAL library] and the jointly-authored A.N. Didron and M. Stokes, Christian Iconography: or, The History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages, 1886 [SAL shelfmark 153a].
Following her donation of drawings, photographs and overpainted photographs to the SAL in 1882 and 1886, Stokes presented several publications to the library, including her Notes on the Cross of Cong, Dublin 1895 [SAL shelfmark 114e] which contains a coloured frontispiece and tailpiece illustrations after the SAL originals. Tipped in at the front of Notes on the Cross of Cong is a slip of paper embossed ‘Carrig Breac / Lowth’, inscribed, ‘Presented to the Library of the / Society of Antiquaries London / by Margaret Stokes / July 25/95’. The book was printed by Dublin University Press for private circulation, 224 copies, 24 of which were lettered A-Z for presentation, the SAL copy being ‘U’. The two coloured lithographs, produced in Frankfurt, are of exceptional quality.
Margaret Stokes’s High Crosses of Castledermot and Durrow, Dublin 1898 [SAL shelfmark 110f] was intended to be the first of a series on stone crosses. It is a less sumptuous production than Notes on the Cross of Cong. It contains several wood engraved vignettes, one photogravure plate and 12 large photomechanical reproductions after retouched platinotype prints to support 26 pages of text. Stokes described how she used rubbings and photographs taken at carefully-chosen times of day to retrieve as much detail as possible from the worn stone relief decoration and lettering of the Castledermot and Durrow crosses (Royal Irish Academy manuscript, RIA.M 12L.36). She then enhanced large format platinotype prints, using watercolour and bodycolour, possibly and/or ink, to provide originals for black and white photographic reproduction. A number of her untouched and retouched platinotype photographs of stone crosses are in the Royal Irish Academy collection (N. Nicghabhann and C.M. Thomas, 2021, figs 1, 2).
Stokes presented her The holed-stone Cross at Moone, London 1899 [SAL shelfmark Tr 171*], to the SAL in November 1899, see Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, second series XVIII, 1901, p.1, gifts recorded at meeting of 23 November 1899.
Creator
Stokes, Margaret McNair (1832-1900), illustrator, antiquarian and writer
Contents