Maebh O’Regan investigates the career of Victorian artist Richard Moynan, who is currently enjoying a resurgence in the Irish art market

The 11th of April this year marked the centenary of the death of the painter Richard Thomas Moynan RHA (1856–1906). The artist’s obituary in the Irish Times indicated that he was held in high regard by his contemporaries: “Mr. Moynan’s name was well known to the Irish public as one of the most notable of our native modern painters”.¹ An account of the artist’s interment in Mount Jerome Cemetery reads like a Who’s Who of 19th-century Irish art as it included such luminaries as the President of the Royal Hibernian Academy, Thomas Drew, J M Kavanagh, Moynan’s friend in Antwerp, Henry Allan RHA, William Mitchell RHA, Alfred Grey RHA, P Vincent Duffy RHA, and many others