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Russborough House
Russborough House is a stately house near the Blessington Lakes in County Wicklow, Republic of Ireland. Located between the towns of Blessington and Ballymore Eustace, it is an outstanding example of Palladian architecture, designed by Richard Cassels (also commonly known as Richard Castle) for Joseph Leeson, 1st Earl of Milltown and built between 1741 and 1755. With a frontage measuring , it may be the longest house in Ireland. The interior contains fine ornate plasterwork on the ceilings by the Lafranchini brothers, who also collaborated with Castle on Carton House. Russborough contains an important private collection of European fine and decorative arts, including furniture, silver, porcelain and paintings. Russborough is open to visitors and is located on a estate, with many of the original 18th-century features still in place including the Walled Garden, the ice-house, the lime kiln and the serpentine lakes. There is a restaurant, shop and maze. History The Leeson family ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palladian Architecture
Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and the principles of formal classical architecture from ancient Greek and Roman traditions. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Palladio's interpretation of this classical architecture developed into the style known as Palladianism. Palladianism emerged in England in the early 17th century, led by Inigo Jones, whose Queen's House at Greenwich has been described as the first English Palladian building. Its development faltered at the onset of the English Civil War. After the Stuart Restoration, the architectural landscape was dominated by the more flamboyant English Baroque. Palladianism returned to fashion after a reaction against the Baroque in the early 18th century, fuelled by the publication of a number of architectural books, including Pall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was born to a middle-class family in 1746, in Fuendetodos in Aragon. He studied painting from age 14 under José Luzán y Martinez and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs. He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773. Their life was characterised by a series of pregnancies and miscarriages, and only one child, a son, survived into adulthood. Goya became a court painter to the Spanish Crown in 1786 and this early portion of his career is marked by portraits of the Spanish aristocracy and royalty, and Rococo-style tapestry cartoons des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady Writing A Letter With Her Maid
''Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid'' ( nl, Schrijvende vrouw met dienstbode) is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, completed in 1670–1671 and held in the National Gallery of Ireland, in Dublin. The work shows a middle-class woman attended by a housemaid who is presumably acting as messenger and go-between for the lady and her lover. The work is seen as a bridge between the quiet restraint and self-containment of Vermeer's work of the 1660s and his relatively cooler work of the 1670s. It may have been partly inspired by Ter Borch's painting ''Woman Sealing a Letter''. The painting's canvas was almost certainly cut from the same bolt used for '' Woman with a Lute''. ''Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid'' is the first of the artist's experiments with centrifugal composition; where the focus is not only from the centre of the canvas.Wheelock, 116 In addition, it is his third work in which the drama and dynamic is not centred on a single figure.Bonafoux, 124 The m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Cahill
Martin "The General" Cahill (23 May 1949 – 18 August 1994) was an Irish crime boss from Dublin. He masterminded a series of burglaries and armed robberies, and was shot and killed while out on bail for kidnapping charges. The Provisional Irish Republican Army took responsibility for Cahill's murder but no one was ever arrested or formally charged. The media referred to him by the sobriquet "The General". The name was also used by the media to discuss Cahill's activities while avoiding legal problems with libel. Cahill took particular care to hide his face from the media — he would spread the fingers of one hand and cover his face. Early life He was born in a slum district in Grenville Street in Dublin's north inner city, the second of twelve surviving children of Patrick Cahill, a lighthouse-keeper, and Agnes Sheehan. By the time he was in school, Martin and his older brother John were stealing food to supplement the family's income. In 1960, the family was moved to Captai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rose Dugdale
Bridget Rose Dugdale (born 1941), better known as Rose Dugdale, is a former debutante who rebelled against her wealthy upbringing, becoming a volunteer in the militant Irish republican organisation, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). As an PIRA member, she took part in the theft of paintings worth IR£8 million and a bomb attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) station using a hijacked helicopter. Early life Dugdale was born into a wealthy English family. Her millionaire father was an underwriter at Lloyd's of London who owned a estate near Axminster in Devon. The family also owned a house in London near Chelsea Hospital,MacCarthy 2007, p. 254. and Dugdale was educated at the nearby Miss Ironside's School for Girls in Kensington, west London. She was a popular pupil, with fellow pupil Virginia Ironside stating: "Everyone adored this generous, clever and dashing millionaire's daughter, who was life and laughter". After completing her early education Dugdale w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic free from British rule. The original Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), often now referred to as the "old IRA", was raised in 1917 from members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army later reinforced by Irishmen formerly in the British Army in World War I, who returned to Ireland to fight against Britain in the Irish War of Independence. In Irish law, this IRA was the army of the revolutionary Irish Republic as declared by its parliament, Dáil Éireann, in 1919. In the century that followed, the original IRA was reorganised, changed and split on multiple occasions, to such a degree that many subsequent paramilitary organisations have been known by that title – most not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art Theft
Art theft, sometimes called artnapping, is the stealing of paintings, sculptures, or other forms of visual art from galleries, museums or other public and private locations. Stolen art is often resold or used by criminals as collateral to secure loans. Only a small percentage of stolen art is recovered—an estimated 10%. Many nations operate police squads to investigate art theft and illegal trade in stolen art and antiquities. Some famous art theft cases include the robbery of the ''Mona Lisa'' from the Louvre in 1911 by employee Vincenzo Peruggia. Another was theft of ''The Scream'', stolen from the Munch Museum in 2004, but recovered in 2006. The largest-value art theft occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, when 13 works, worth a combined $500 million were stolen in 1990. The case remains unsolved. Individual theft Many thieves are motivated by the fact that valuable art pieces are worth millions of dollars and weigh only a few kilograms at most. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manufacture Nationale De Sèvres
The ''Manufacture nationale de Sèvres'' is one of the principal European porcelain factories. It is located in Sèvres, Hauts-de-Seine, France. It is the continuation of Vincennes porcelain, founded in 1740, which moved to Sèvres in 1756. It has been owned by the French crown or government since 1759, and has always maintained the highest standards of quality. Almost immediately, it replaced Meissen porcelain as the standard-setter among European porcelain factories, retaining this position until at least the 19th century. Its production is still largely based on the creation of contemporary objects today. It became part of the '' Cité de la céramique'' in 2010 with the ''Musée national de céramique'', and since 2012 with the ''Musée national Adrien Dubouché'' in Limoges. History Origins In 1740, the '' Manufacture de Vincennes'' was founded, thanks to the support of Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour, in order to compete with factories such as Chantil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meissen Porcelain
Meissen porcelain or Meissen china was the first European hard-paste porcelain. Early experiments were done in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhaus's work and brought this type of porcelain to the market, financed by King Augustus II of Poland, Augustus the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. The production of porcelain in the royal factory at Meissen, near Dresden, started in 1710 and attracted artists and artisans to establish, arguably, the most famous porcelain manufacturer known throughout the world. Its signature logo, the crossed swords, was introduced in 1720 to protect its production; the mark of the swords is reportedly one of the oldest trademarks in existence. ''Dresden porcelain'' (or "china") was once the usual term for these wares, until in 1975 the (Higher Munich State Court) decided in favour of the Saxon Porcelain Manufactory Dresden, which alone was then allowed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claude-Joseph Vernet
Claude-Joseph Vernet (14 August 17143 December 1789) was a French painter. His son, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, was also a painter. Life and work Vernet was born in Avignon. When only fourteen years of age he aided his father, Antoine Vernet (1689–1753), a skilled decorative painter, in the most important parts of his work. The panels of sedan chairs, however, could not satisfy his ambition, and Vernet started for Rome. The sight of the whales at Marseilles and his voyage thence to Civitavecchia (Papal States' main port on the Tyrrhenian Sea) made a deep impression on him, and immediately after his arrival he entered the studios of whale painter Bernardino Fergioni and marine landscapist Adrien Manglard. Manglard and Fergioni initiated Vernet into seascape painting. In 1734, Vernet left for Rome to study landscape designers and maritime painters, like Claude Gellee, where we find the styles and subjects of Vernet's paintings. Slowly Vernet attracted notice in the artistic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adriaen Van Ostade
Adriaen van Ostade (baptized as Adriaen Jansz Hendricx 10 December 1610 – buried 2 May 1685) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre works, showing everyday life of ordinary men and women. Life According to Arnold Houbraken, he and his brother were pupils of Frans Hals and like him, spent most of their lives in Haarlem. He thought they were " Lubekkers" by birth, though this has since found to be false.Adriaan & Izaak van Ostade biography in ''De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen'' (1718) by , courtesy of the |
Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Jean-Baptiste Oudry (; 17 March 1686 – 30 April 1755) was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game. His son, Jacques-Charles Oudry, was also a painter. Biography Jean-Baptiste Oudry was born in Paris, the son of Jacques Oudry, a painter and art dealer, and his wife Nicole Papillon,Bryan,1886-9 relative of the engraver Jean-Baptiste-Michel Papillon. His father was a director of the Académie de Saint-Luc art school, which Oudry joined. At first, Oudry concentrated on portraiture, and he became a pupil and perhaps a collaborator of Nicolas de Largillière from 1707 to 1712. He graduated at only 22 years of age, on 21 May 1708, at the same time as his two older brothers. The next year, he married Marie–Marguerite Froissé, the daughter of a ''miroitier'' (a mirror-maker) to whom he gave lessons in painting. Oudry became an assistant professor at Acadà ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
