Statue of St George Ussher St George, Baron St George, Tyrone House, Galway.

The Statue of St George Usher St George, 

Baron St George (c. 1715 - 1775), 

Formerly at Tyrone House, Galway.
Destroyed in 1920.

Anyone (is there anyone?) who reads this blog will know that I use it as a sort of  test bed, an aide memoire and online filing system. It is my receptacle for unfinished researches (see my pages on the portrait busts of Isaac Newton, or Equestrian Statues for example) and for putting down ideas for current and future projects.

I follow several blogs myself - one of my particular favourites is that of the estimable Irish Aesthete.

see - https://theirishaesthete.com/

This blog is mainly devoted to the architecture of Ireland and is frequently a sad indictment of the  general attitude to Irish Architectural Heritage. I heartily recommend this blog to anyone with even a slight interest in the subject.

Today I am posting two photographs from his blog entry entitled Lost Forever posted 25 October  2017

https://theirishaesthete.com/2017/10/25/lost-forever/

For a couple more posts on Sculpture in Ireland by the Irish Easthete see -

https://theirishaesthete.com/2016/07/27/the-speaker-and-his-wife/

https://theirishaesthete.com/2017/08/23/greatly-distinguished/

Commenced building around 1775.

The history of Tyrone House, County Galway and its sad fall from grace was discussed here a few weeks ago (see A High House on High Ground, September 18th 2017). Above is an image of the building included in the fifth and final volume of the The Georgian Society Records of Eighteenth Century Domestic Architecture and Decoration published in 1913, showing it still intact. One of the house’s most striking features was the entrance hall, dominated by a mid-18th century white marble life-size statue of St. George Ussher St. George, Baron Saint George. This survived until Tyrone House was attacked in August 1920 when the statue was smashed to pieces: as a result, the photograph below is the only record of the work.

Copies of my new book, Tyrone House and the St George Family: The Story of an Anglo-Irish Family are now available from the Irish Georgian Society bookshop. For more information, please see https://shop.igs.ie/collections/books

An abbreviated version is available at the Google books website.

In it Robert O'Byrne suggests that the statue might have originally been in the town house at 56, St Stephens Green, Dublin and be by John van Nost III who was working in Dublin by 1749.

It is also similar in pose to one of the figures on the Monument to Lord Charleville at St Catherine's Church, Tullamore, Co. Offaly.

He also publishes a late 19th century account of a visit to the Tyrone House by Elizabeth Lahiff - a descendant of the family 

"I remember the first thing that attracted my attention was the life size marble statue of my ancestor, Baron Usher St George. It was carved in Rome and sent to Ireland in sections....." This is unlikely in my view.

For a brief, illustrated discussion of the pose of this type of statue first seen in the monument in Westminster Abbey to Secretary James Craggs designed by James Gibbs (below) and carved by Guelphi see my previous blog post -

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-rysbrack-statuettes-of-rubens-van_8.html

_____________________________





Lead Figure by John van Nost III, surmounting the gateway to the Upper YardDublin Castle.


For much more on John van Nost III d. 1780 see -

http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/statue-of-george-ii-and-weavers-hall.html

http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/equestrian-statue-of-george-i-at-stowe.html

http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-equestrian-statue-of-george-i-john.html

http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/miniature-lead-equestrian-statue-of.html