Dublin Streets: a Vendor of Books

Dublin Streets: a Vendor of Books is an 80 x 90 cm oil on canvas painting by the Irish artist Walter Osborne, completed in 1889 and housed in the National Gallery of Ireland.

The painting shows a bookseller's stall, set up on Aston Quay, looking eastwards towards O'Connell Bridge with a hazy impressionistic view of James Gandon’s Custom house.

[1] Other details in the bustling scene include traffic (horses, carts and pedestrians) passing over O'Connell Bridge, and a barge and skiff just coming into view as they travel up the River Liffey.

Like the other works in the series, Dublin Streets is documentary in subject matter, influenced in part by the French Naturalist and Realist painters.

However, it remains an invaluable faithful record the quay in 1889; O'Connell bridge had just been rebuilt, while the view of Custom's house was overshadowed in 1891 by the Loopline Viaduct.