Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane

Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane Review

Built as a town house for the Earl of Charlemont in 1762, this residence was so grand that the Parnell Square street on which it sits was nicknamed "Palace Row" in its honor. Sir William Chambers, who also built the Marino Casino for Charlemont, designed the structure in the best Palladian manner. Its delicate and rigidly correct facade, extended by two demilune (half-moon) arcades, was fashioned from the "new" white Ardmulcan stone (now seasoned to gray). Charlemont was one of the cultural locomotives of 18th-century Dublin—his walls were hung with Titians and Hogarths, and he frequently dined with Oliver Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds—so he would undoubtedly be delighted that his home is now a gallery, named after Sir Hugh Lane, a nephew of Lady Gregory (W. B. Yeats's aristocratic patron). Lane collected both Impressionist paintings and 19th-century Irish and Anglo-Irish works. A complicated agreement with the National Gallery in London (reached after heated diplomatic dispute) stipulates that a portion of the 39 French paintings amassed by Lane shuttle between London and here. Time it right and you'll be able to see Pissarro's Printemps, Manet's Eva Gonzales, Morisot's Jour d'Été, and, the jewel of the collection, Renoir's Les Parapluies.

In something of a snub to the British art establishment, the late Francis Bacon's partner donated the entire contents of the artist's studio to the gallery. The studio of arguably Britain's premier 20th-century artist has been reconstructed here in all its gaudy glory as a permanent display. It gives you a unique opportunity to observe the bravura technique of the artist responsible for such masterpieces as Study After Velázquez and the tragic splash-and-crash Triptych. Also on display are Bacon's diary, books, and apparently everything else picked up off his floor.

Between the collection of Irish paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland and the superlative works on display here, you can quickly become familiar with Irish 20th-century art. Irish artists represented include Roderic O'Conor, well known for his views of the west of Ireland; William Leech, including his Girl with a Tinsel Scarf and The Cigarette; and the most famous of the group, Jack B. Yeats (W. B.'s brother). The museum has a dozen of his paintings, including Ball Alley and There Is No Night. The mystically serene Sean Scully Gallery displays seven giant canvasses by Ireland's renowned abstract modernist.