A Sick Call, from "Illustrated London News"

A priest is rowed in a boat, accompanied by altar boys as a woman weeps next to the oarsman. The architecture indicates a setting in Belgium or northern Germany. Lawless was born in Dublin to a prosperous Roman Catholic family, traveled in France and the Low Countries, and was pursuing a promising London career when his life was cut short by tuberculosis in 1864. That makes the present subject a poignant one, since the prognosis does not seem hopeful for the patient to whose bed the religious figures are travelling–an unhappy outcome indicated by a dimly lit lamp, broken reed in the foreground, and sickle that rest on the stern. The full title of Lawless's related painting of 1863, now National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, is, "The Sick Call: "Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priest of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord."

Credit: Gift of Donato Esposito, 2015