Wednesday, 27 July 2016

William and Katherine Conolly by Thomas Carter



The Rt Hon. William Conolly and his wife Katherine Conolly.
 
This entire post lifted from the blog without permission from -
 
The Irish Aesthete.
 
I highly recommend this blog to anyone interested in the culture of Ireland, in particular its architecture in the past and in many places its disintegration in the present.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
'In August 1736 the Dublin Gazette reported, 'On Friday last two curious fine monuments, lately finished by Mr Carter near Hyde Park Corner, were put on board a ship in the river in order to be carried to Ireland, to be erected in the church of Castletown near Dublin, to the memory of the Rt. Hon. William Conolly Esq., Late Speaker to the House of Commons, and his lady.' The two life-sized figures of William and Katherine Conolly were commissioned by the latter after her husband's death in 1729 from London-sculptor Thomas Carter (although it has been proposed that Mrs Conolly's likeness may be from the hand of his son, Thomas Carter Junior). Originally they formed part of a larger monument in a mausoleum attached to the church in nearby Celbridge but in recent decades this fell into disrepair and in 1993 the figures were removed to Castletown where they can be found facing each other in a ground floor passage behind the main staircase'.
 
 
 

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