Pressure is mounting on Britain to return a priceless hoard of impressionist paintings to Dublin as Ireland prepares for centenary celebrations of its Easter Rising.



How Ireland was robbed of Hugh Lane's great art collection Read more

In a resurgence of a 100-year dispute, once a nationalist cause celebre, city leaders in Dublin will consider formally demanding the handover of 39 works by artists including Renoir, Monet and Manet.

The collection was originally left to the National Gallery in London by the Cork-born art collector Sir Hugh Lane, who died on the Lusitania when it was sunk by a German torpedo in 1915 off the Irish coast.

It was later discovered he wrote a codicil, or amendment, to his will stating he had changed his mind about the paintings going to London and instead bequeathed them to Dublin.

The amendment was signed but not witnessed and the National Gallery retained legal ownership.

Controversy raged for decades afterwards and Irish nationalists WB Yeats and Lady Gregory, Lane’s aunt, were among those who campaigned for the collector’s final wishes to be honoured.

The collection includes Renoir’s The Umbrellas, Manet’s Eva Gonzales, Degas’s Beach Scene and Monet’s Lavacourt Under Snow.

A 40-year deal was agreed in 1979 to loan much of the collection to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, but city representatives are considering a fresh offensive to have the collection officially returned as the deal approaches expiry.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Detail of Claude Monet’s Lavacourt Under Snow. Photograph: The National Gallery/PA

Dublin city council will debate a motion next week tabled by Fianna Fail councillor Jim O’Callaghan to return the paintings. He said he was confident the motion would be passed and urged the National Gallery “to recognise that the moral right to these paintings rests in Dublin”.

“I think it is important that the political representatives of the city of Dublin indicate that they believe the paintings should be returned to their rightful home. Once the current agreement is up I think the fairest arrangement would be for the paintings to be returned to their proper home.” he added.

The move has come before an imminent general election but also amid the opening salvoes in a year of disputed celebrations of the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule, which eventually led to Irish independence. O’Callaghan said 2016 would be a good year to return the paintings.

The National Gallery declined to respond to questions about the future of the Hugh Lane collection after the existing agreement expired in 2019, or whether there were any talks about alternative arrangements. A spokeswoman said an amicable agreement had been in place for many years and remained valid for another three years.

The National Gallery director, Sir Nicholas Penny, said last year that “Dublin has some moral claim” to the collection. His remarks were welcomed at the time by the Hugh Lane Gallery as “the clearest public acknowledgement of Dublin’s right to these paintings”.

Under the 1979 deal, the works were divided into two groups, with 30 pictures placed on loan to the Hugh Lane in Dublin and eight pictures remaining in London. A futher deal in 1993 divided the eight paintings in London into two groups that were shown alternately in Dublin and London for six years at a time.