English 18th Century Portrait Sculpture: Mrs. Mary Landré

Mrs. Mary Landré (fl 1768 - 74) - Figure Maker.

A few notes.

Wife of John Landre (d.1765) of St Giles Parish, .

Will proved - 23 December 1765. The National Archives' reference -PROB 11/914/414

left his house in Dublin to his wife and after her decease to the two daughters of his brother Francis.

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Mary Landre - In 1766, supplied ornamental figures and vases to Duke of Bedford (Poole/Woburn Abbey).

from - https://www.northernceramicsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/DEALERS-LIST-November2022.pdf

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For the Wedgwood Triton after Bernini see -

https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/719580.1

Drunken Silenus - Wedgwood relief .

https://www.mediastorehouse.co.uk/fine-art-finder/artists/english-photographer/drunken-silenus-wedgwood-terracotta-biscuit-22325018.html

John Landre.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Banks-106-18

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Wedgwood and Mrs Landre.

Wedgwood himself was, directly and indirectly, involved in piracy and in a letter Bentley of 31 October 1768, he articulated his fear of this piracy being discovered by the owner of a London plaster shop:

"What shall I do - I dare not write to her, Mrs. Landre, from hence and in my own name, Voyez [a freelance modeller who once worked for Wedgwood] says she is the D.. .1 [devil] at finding out pirates, and if she once finds me out, I shall never be able to get a cast from her

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Mary Landre From Life of Josiah Wedgwood...... Eliza Meteyard 1866

Bill 21 Jan 1769

Bill to Wedgwood paid 15 June 1775.

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Peter Landre d 1764, Dublin, Brother of John Landre.

His will 1747 described as Gardener Prerogative Wills of Ireland.

1758 Elizabeth Landre

Roques Map of Dublin.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03085694.2022.2042125#d1e653

Landre's Gardens

The attention given to individual structures varies. The drawing of the mansion in Capel Street that belonged to William Conolly, Speaker in the House of Commons and the richest commoner in early eighteenth-century Ireland, seems cursory (Fig. 6, top). In contrast a house resembling a Parisian hôtel entre cour et jardin, just off St Stephen’s Green, has been rendered meticulously (Fig. 6, bottom). It had belonged to the Huguenot, Peter Landré, but by the time Rocque had arrived it had been converted into a miniature pleasure garden, with orchestra and tea and chocolate houses, before being sold to the sometime banker, lawyer and member of the Irish parliament, Anthony Malone. The garden and house were situated in the heart of one of the more affluent and relatively densely built-up areas of the city.Footnote87

Fig. 6. Details from An Exact Survey of Dublin (1756). Top: the house in Capel Street belonging to William Conolly, Speaker of the House of Commons. Despite the rather casual style of the drawing, attention has been paid to the steps between the terrace and the lawns. Bottom: the noticeably more careful depiction of Peter and John Landré’s former house off the north eastern corner of St Stephen's Green. Considerable attention has been paid to the layout of the house, which resembles that of a Parisian hôtel entre court et jardin, in contrast to the sketchy rendering of the house of the influential William Conolly.

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Peter Landre (d.1747 aged 80) was importing fruit trees from England in 1714

ref Making the Grand Figure: Lives and Possessions in Ireland, 1641-1770 By Toby Christopher Barnard,

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James and Peter Landre Nurserymen of St Stephens Green - Stock sold off when lease expired before 1740 - ref. Dictionary Of British And Irish Botanists And Horticulturalists Including ...By Ray Desmond 1994.

From Faulkner's Dublin Journal.

Spring Gardens St Stephens Green, vocal and instrumental musical concerts in 1750 "in the manner of Vauxhall, London.

see - Theatre in Dublin, 1745-1820: A Calendar of Performances, Volume 1, By John C. Greene, 2011

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Lots 9, 10, 11, and 12 formerly belonging to the Earl of Roscommon, later Peter Andre - one brick house and Landre's Gardens fronting the Green 238 ft later belonging to Anthony Malone - Ref The Georgian Society Records of Eighteenth Century Domestic Architecture and Decoration in Dublin, Volume 2 - 1969.

Perhaps a coincidence ! but the Landre connection with van Nost is interesting.

John Van Nost III the sculptor was living in Aungier Street in 1759, and later in 1763 "in the garden of the Right Hon. Anthony Malone (1700 -76), on the east side of Stephen's Green" (see "Faulkner's Journal," 11th June, 1763, and "Georgian Society," Vol. II).

On his leaving Aungier Street he had a sale of his moulds and models, and some of them were bought by the young sculptor, Patrick Cunningham, who had been an apprentice of Van Nost.

Van Nost made a number of visits to London: these included one in 1753 or 1754 to hold sittings with King George II for the equestrian statue in St Stephen's Green, another in 1763, when he had a London address 'At Mr Clarke's, St Martin's-lane, opposite May's-buildings',

In 1763 he was listed in Mortimer’s Universal Director ‘at Mr Clarke’s, St Martin’s-lane, opposite May’s-buildings’ (p 28; Rate-Books 1763, Cleansing Street Rates, F6007).

J T Smith later recollected that Nost had lived at 104 St Martin’s Lane, in a large house once inhabited and decorated by King George I’s sergeant painter, Sir James Thornhill.

for Anthony Malone see - https://www.dib.ie/biography/malone-anthony-a5418

In 1779 the sculptor was residing at No. 21 Mecklenburgh Street, and in that year, on 19th October, his statue of "Hugh Lawton," Mayor of Cork, 1776, was erected in Cork. In the following year he went to London, where he stayed four years on account of ill-health. Returning to Dublin he there passed the remainder of his life, dying in Mecklenburgh Street in 1787.

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Peter Landre deceased 1754 - Two Houses in Dawson Street.