A portrait of Oonagh Guinness commissioned in 1931 from the fashionable artist Philip de László by the sitter’s then-husband Philip Kindersley, who paid £1,575 for the work. Much admired, the picture was exhibited in Paris the following year in a retrospective of de László’s career. Thereafter it hung in the drawing room at Luggala, County Wicklow until Oonagh Guinness’ death in August 1995 when bequeathed to Gay Kindersley, the son of her first marriage: he sold the picture and its whereabouts ever since remain a mystery. On Saturday afternoon (June 16th) at Farmleigh, Dublin I shall be speaking about Oonagh and her son, the recently deceased Garech Browne, and how they made Luggala a magnet for artists. This is part of a series of events to coincide with an exhibition of Irish portraits by Garech’s close friend Anthony Palliser currently being held in the same venue.
For more information on this talk and others in the same series, please see: http://farmleigh.ie/calendar-of-events
Tag Archives: Public Talk
Another Lost Treasure
Mention was made here last week to Edward Synge, one-time Bishop of Elphin. His immediate predecessor in that diocese was Robert Howard whose eldest son Ralph in the early 1750s made the customary Grand Tour to Italy. While wintering in Rome in 1750-51 the younger Howard (who in due course became Baron Clonmore and then Viscount Wicklow) had his portrait painted by the city’s most fashionable artist Pompeo Batoni. The picture was brought back to Ireland and hung in the Howard’s seat, Shelton Abbey where its presence is recorded in an inventory of the house’s contents conducted by Bennett’s in July 1914: at that date the work was valued at £210.
Sadly Ralph Howard’s descendant, the eighth Earl of Wicklow was unable to maintain Shelton Abbey and accordingly in October 1950 a great sale of the house’s contents was held, an event so substantial that it lasted almost a fortnight. Among the lots was number 1740, the Batoni portrait, although by then its sitter seems to have been forgotten, since he is simply listed as a ‘gentleman in crimson with fur-edged coat.’ In addition, the work’s value had significantly decreased since 1914, as it only fetched £90. Today it hangs in the J.B. Speed Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.
I shall be discussing the Shelton Abbey sale, and several others, next Thursday at 7pm in Lismore Castle, County Waterford during the course of a talk called ‘Art in Historic Irish Houses: Its Collection and Dispersal.’ For further information, see: http://www.lismorecastlearts.ie/events
A Man of Taste and Literature
Described by Maria Edgeworth as ‘An excellent clergyman, of a liberal spirit and conciliating manners, a man of taste and literature,’ the Rev. Daniel Beaufort was also a talented amateur architect. Here is his design for a new church at Ardbraccan, County Meath dating from the 1770s. At the west end it was proposed the building incorporate a still-extant 15th century tower which rises 100 feet: accordingly Beaufort proposed the church run to the same length. The tower was also to be given single-storey gothick wings on either side. In the event, a simpler version of Beaufort’s drawing was constructed, of four bays rather than six (thereby making the nave shorter) and leaving the tower unattached. This can be seen below, in a photograph taken inside Ardbraccan’s demesne wall. I shall be giving a talk on the life and work of Daniel Beaufort next Thursday, November 17th at 7.30pm in St Mary’s Church of Ireland, Church Hill, Navan (a building for which he was also responsible). For further information, see: http://mahs.freesite.host/index.php/2016-programme
A Blackwater Beauty
Wonderfully sited above the Blackwater river, Salterbridge, County Waterford has a complex building history. The core of the house, the three bays articulated by the giant limestone Tuscan pilasters and heavy parapet entablature, likely date from c.1751 when a residence was constructed here by Richard Musgrave who had acquired this portion of lands previously owned by the Earls of Cork. In the early 19th century his grandson Anthony Chearnley, who had married an heiress, embarked on a programme of enlargement and embellishment, extending the house’s by a further bay on either side and giving it the Wyatt windows seen on the first floor. Further work took place in the 1840s when the ground floor canted bays were added and the glazing here altered.
Salterbridge is among the houses lining the Blackwater that I shall be discussing in a talk hosted by the Irish Georgian Society at the Chesterfield Hotel, Palm Beach, Florida on Monday, March 7th. For further information, please see: https://www.igs.ie/events/detail/us-event-the-beauties-of-the-blackwater
Hugh Lane
A portrait of art dealer and philanthropist Sir Hugh Lane. The picture was painted in September 1904 by Roman-born Antonio Mancini when Lane was visiting the artist’s native city. Tomorrow marks the centenary of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania off the coast of Cork, and Lane was among the 1,198 persons who died on that occasion.
I shall be giving two talks in the coming weeks on Sir Hugh Lane. On Thursday 14th May, I will be speaking at the Library in Douglas, Cork at 7pm (for more information, see http://www.vernonmountpark.ie/latest-news) and on Thursday 21st May I will be speaking at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane at 6.45 (for more information, see http://www.hughlane.ie/lectures/lectures-past/1320-evening-lecture-the-commercial-world-of-sir-hugh-lane-art-dealer-with-robert-obyrne). The Mancini portrait continues to hang in the gallery founded by Sir Hugh Lane and can be seen there in an exhibition marking the centenary of his death.