Luke Gardiner (1745-98): An Irish Dilettante

Irish Arts Review

Luke Gardiner (1745-98): An Irish DilettanteAuthor(s): John ColemanSource: Irish Arts Review Yearbook, Vol. 15 (1999), pp. 160-168Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20493060 .

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LUKE GARDINER (1745-98 AN IRISH DILETTANTE

T he name of Luke Gardiner is well known to anyone who has studied

the evolution of 18th-century Dublin. The Gardiner family, as property specu lators and builders, were responsible for the development of the spacious and elegant north inner city, which fashion sadly deserted in the 19th century when

many of its fine houses became tene

ments. Their memory is Derpetuated in

streets and squares which bear the fam

ily name and those of their peerages, Blessington and Mountjoy.' There were in fact two Luke Gardiners who between them

spanned the 18th century - the elder Luke (d.1755), founder of

the dynasty and his grandson. The latter, who was born in 1745

and died in 1798, is the principal subject of this article. He was

well educated, made the Grand Tour, and was a particularly

articulate patron of both Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gavin

Hamilton. He commissioned from Reynolds the large scale triple portrait, Three Ladies Adoming a Term of Hymen (Fig 5), depict

ing his wife Elizabeth Montgomery (1751-83) and her two younger sisters, Anne, Viscountess Townshend, and Barbara, the youngest, who married the Hon John Beresford in 1774*2 From Hamilton he commissioned one of his ambitious history paintings, Priam Pleading with Achilles for the Body of Hector (Fig 9).

In order to set the scene it is well to

say something of the elder Luke

Gardiner. His date of birth is not known

and he appears to have been, like his

contemporary William Conolly of Castletown, a self-made man of obscure

origins. He may have been a son of the

Dublin merchant William Gardiner who was granted arms in 1683.' He reputedly

started out life as a footman in the ser

vice of Mr White at Leixlip Castle. A

story is told of how later in life a noble

friend, on seeing him enter his carriage, remarked 'How does it happen, Gardiner, you never make a mistake and get up

behind?' To which Gardiner was said to

have replied 'Some people, my lord, who have been long accustomed to going in,

remain at last on the outside, and can

get neither in nor up again.'4 He became

a property developer and banker, mak

ing a fortune in developing housing in

the rapidly expanding Dublin of the

early 18th century. He is first recorded

as a banker in Castle Street in partner

ship with a nobleman's younger son and

between 1712 and 1721 he purchased a

large portion of the north east part of

the city, much of it from the estate of

the Moore family, Earls of Drogheda.' In

1711, he made a judicious marriage to

Anne, daughter and heiress to Hon

Alexander Stewart, second son of the 1st Viscount of Mountjoy, thus connecting himself to the peerage.6 He became the

holder of important public office as

Member of Parliament, Surveyor General of the Customs. Privy Councillor. and

Deputy Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. The latter position allowed him to use funds held in balance for his

own purposes which must have allowed him capital for specula

tion.' In the 1720s he was a trustee of the Royal Barracks (now

Collins Barracks) and Ranger of the Castleknock Walk in the

Phoenix Park where he built himself a house following his retire

ment from banking in 1738. This house was sold by the younger

Luke to the Government in 1788, was subsequently known as

Mountjoy Barracks, and is now the Ordnance Survey Office.8 Unlike most latter day urban speculators, the Gardiners dis

tinguished themselves from early on for the quality of their

architectural patronage. The elder Luke Gardiner's first major development was of twenty-one large scale houses in Henrietta Street named after the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, the 2nd

Duke of Grafton. It remained the grand

est street in the city throughout the

18th century - in 1792 its residents

included one archbishop, two bishops, four peers and four MPs.9 His wife's

cousin, the foremost architect of the day, Edward Lovett Pearce, built 10

Henrietta Street for Gardiner himself with its garden front facing onto a pri

vate park.'" One of his other develop

ments was Sackville Street and Gardiner's Mall, begun in 1749 (now O'Connell

Street). It was conceived as an elon

gated square, though the later bridge

destroyed this effect." This great devel opment was named after Lionel Sackville,

1st Duke of Dorset, who had been Lord

Lieutenant. Another street was named Dorset Street in his honour while Luke

Gardiner even went so far as to have

one of his sons christened Sackville

Gardiner. Sackville Gardiner features in

the Leslie Conversation Piece, now at

Castle Coole (Fig 4) .2

There may be a further mysterious

connection between the Gardiners and the Sackville family. At Knole in Kent

there is a set of small oval portraits of

retainers and servants, reminiscent in style and dimensions of those well

John Coleman

outlines the artistic

and architectural legacy

of an enlightened

18th-century patron

1. After Charles JERVAS (c.1675-1739): Portrait of Luke Gardiner the Elder (d. 1755). Mezzotint by John Brooks (fl. 1730-56). (The British Museum). Starting out in life as a footman, Gardiner became one of the richest and most powerful men in Ireland. He was responsible for the development of Henrietta Street, Dublin where he

lived in one of its finest mansions.

(Opposite). 2. Francis CoTES (c.1725-70): Portrait of Luke Gardiner (1745-98). 1765. Pastel on paper,

90 x 71.5 cm. (Private collection). Depicted in the gown of a fellow commoner of Cambridge University with the Kings College chapel in the bottom right

hand comer, Gardiner was in fact a graduate of St John's College.

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW



* S 9 9, . 'S. S . . S *



LUKE GARDINER (1745-98): AN IRISH DILETTANTE

known portraits by Hugh Douglas Hamilton. The series at Knole are by an itinerant painter named Almond and were painted in

1783. The range of people depicted is wide: some of the gentle men are bewigged and look quite distinguished; others are in more careless dress and appear to be altogether rougher charac ters. One of the more distinguished images (Fig 10) depicts an elderly bewigged gentleman and is inscribed on the reverse 'William Gardiner esqr. died April 179(M) Superintendent Ireland 1735."' He would have been of an age to be considered

as a possible son to the elder Luke Gardiner, but there is as yet

no evidence to support this contention. William was also a

favoured family name, being that of the elder Luke's father-in law and of the younger Luke's brother.

As one would expect of a leading public figure of the time, the

elder Luke had his portrait painted by the leading portrait

painter of the time, Charles Jervas, and the portrait was engraved

by James Brooks (Fig 1).'4 He also assembled a collection of at

least thirty-five paintings in Henrietta Street. Among his pic tures were two 'large pictures of the cartoons' which were given

the highest value of any pictures in his collection. One wonders

whether he had seen the copies of Raphael's cartoons at Knole,

the Kent seat of the Duke of Dorset, and whether he was emu

lating his grand friend in having a set in Henrietta Street.'5

The first Luke Gardiner had a number of children, among

whom was Charles (d.1769), father to the younger Luke, Sackville, and Henrietta. 6 Charles lived with his cousin William Stewart (1709-69), 3rd Viscount Mountjoy and 1st Earl of Blessinton or Blessington at 12 Henrietta Street from 1740 to 1755. As an MP from 1755 until his death in 1769, he lived at

10 Henrietta Street. He also held public office as Surveyor General and Ranger of the Phoenix Park. He was responsible for

the development of Cavendish Row and the beginning of Rutland Square. He also commissioned the facade of the since demolished St Thomas's Church in Marlborough Street, based on Palladio's Redentore.'7

Family ambitions for the young Luke were signalled early on when he was sent in 1759 to Eton where he spent the following three years. He went from there to St John's College,

Cambridge, where we find him admitted a fellow commoner on 7 June 1762. In 1765 he had his portrait painted wearing the

gown of a fellow commoner and with the distinctive profile of King's College Chapel in the background (Fig 2). The portrait

4. Attributed to William DOUGHTY (fl.1775-82 ): The Leslie Conversation-piece. Oil on canvas, 76 x 63.5 cms. (Collection the Earl of Belmore, Castle Coole). This caricature, formerly at Castle Leslie, features Sackville Gardiner (second from right), son of the first Luke Gardiner and uncle of the second Luke.

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LUKE GARDINER (1745-98): AN IRISH DILErTTrANTE

5. Sir Joshua REYNOLDS (1 723 -92): Three Ladies Adorriing a Term of Hymen. 17 73. Oil on canvas, 233.6 x 291 cm. (Tate Gallery). This triple portrait, exhibited at the

Royal Academy in 1774, was commissioned by Luke Gardiner. It depicts Gardiner's wife, Elizabeth Montgomery, and her two sisters, the Hon Mrs John Beresford and Viscountess Townshend.

was painted by the fashionable portraitist Francis Cotes (c. 1725

70), who, but for his premature death, threatened to eclipse

Reynolds's success." Having been thus groomed for the life of a gentleman, the

young Luke, together with his younger brother, William (1748 1806), set out on the Grand Tour during the years 1770-1772,

visiting Rome, Florence and Venice. They were recorded in Florence in December 1770, in Venice in May 1771 and in

October 1771 they received an introduction from Horace

Mann, the British Ambassador in Florence, to Cardinal Albani,

the noted patron of the arts in Rome.'9

While in Rome, Gardiner commissioned Gavin Hamilton (1723-98) to paint Priam Pleading with Achilles for the Body of

Hector, now lost, but an oil sketch for which is in the Tate

Gallery, London (Fig 9). Hamilton had been living in Rome

since 1756 and preferred to remain there seeking patrons for his high-minded history paintings rather than return to his previous occupation of portrait painter in London. He must have been pleased to receive the commission for what was the fifth in a series of six monumental paintings, commissioned by different patrons over a fifteen-year period commencing in 1758 and based on scenes from Homer's Iliad. He charged ?50 per figure.20 The pic ture was a dramatic expressive work in the seventeenth-century Italian tradition depicting the sort of heroic classical scene

which was intended to inspire eighteenth-century gentlemen with a high-minded sense of virtue to be exercised in public life.

Following his return from the Grand Tour in 1773, Luke Gardiner was elected a member of the Society of Dilettanti, the

exclusive London dining club for those who had been to Italy.2' In 1769, on his father's death and before he set out on the

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LUKE GARDINER (1745-98): AN IRIStI DILETTANTE

6. Sir Joshua REYNOLDS (1723-92): Portrait of General Wlliam Gardiner. Oil on canvas, 76 x 62.5 cm. (Collection

Lord Egremont, Petworth House). William Gardiner completed the Grand Tour with his brother Luke in 1771 and later had a successful military career reaching the rank of general. He married the sister of the Duchess of Grafton.

Grand Tour, he had moved into 10 Henrietta Street and this

was to be his Dublin residence until his death in 1798.2

Following his return from the Grand Tour he sat to Reynolds for

his own portrait in February/March 1773 (Fig 3). Reynolds must have been requested to paint two copies as in a letter to Luke

Gardiner in July 1773 he wrote: 'I shall send away your picture

(the best of the two) immediately.'23 He is depicted in a head

and shoulders size portrait - known as a three-quarters - as a

dashing young officer in a scarlet uniform. In the same year

Reynolds painted an equally dashing portrait (Fig 6) of his

younger brother William (1748-1806), who later had a success ful military career, reaching the rank of General, and marrying

the sister of the Duchess of Grafton.24 In the summer of 1773, Luke Gardiner commissioned from

Reynolds the famous triple portrait of his future wife, Elizabeth

Montgomery, and her sisters which was exhibited at the Royal Academy the fol

lowing year (Fig 5).25 The picture was the

subject of a mezzotint by Thomas

Watson published in 1776 and again in

1781. The triple portrait is very much a

theatrical set piece which reflects the interests of Luke Gardiner and his wife.

Both were theatre enthusiasts and had a

private theatre constructed in the Ranger's House in the Phoenix Park

where the picture may have been hung.

The room, reminiscent of the House of Lords in the Dublin Parliament building with an apse and coffered semi-dome at

one end and a coffered arch at the other,

still survives, although partitioned.26 The picture might have hung on one of the

long side walls in the equivalent position to the tapestries in the House of Lords.

It is difficult to imagine a room in the

Henrietta Street house large enough to accommodate the picture comfortably.

Elizabeth Montgomery was a noted

amateur actress and The Gentlemen's

Magazine noted that she had 'most

remarkable fine theatrical talents.'27 On 8 January 1775 Lady Louisa Conolly saw

her perform and wrote: Their two plays were the prettiest things I

ever saw, and incomparably well acted.

Mr Jephson and Mrs Gardiner, I think,

are equal to any actors (Garrick

excepted) I ever saw.

A depiction of Mrs Gardiner in the role

of Lady Macbeth appeared in the

Hibernian Magazine for April 1778 (Fig 8). Mrs Gardiner later appeared in the

same role in their private theatre, as

Lord Charlemont wrote in January 1779: The nineteenth of this incident is to be presented, at the new the atre in the Park, the tragedy of Macbeth. The part of Macbeth by

Jephson; Lady by Mrs Gardiner; Macduff by Mr. Gardiner. In 1781, Luke Gardiner was to write a prologue to The Count of

Narbone, a play by the Irish dramatist Robert Jephson (1736

1803), based on Horace Walpole's pioneering Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto.28 The play, and the novel, tell of a murderous

usurper who is finally replaced by a legitimate hereditary ruler.

Walpole advised Jephson on the casting and production of the

play for its Covent Garden debut on 17 November 1781 and

even attended the rehearsal on 7 November.29 Walpole owned a

copy of the Dublin edition of the play, which included

Gardiner's prologue, and in a letter to Jephson, whilst fearful of

offending Gardiner, he expressed the hope that in performance a

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LUKE GARDINER (1745-98): AN IRISH DIiLETTANTE

section praising Walpole might be omit ted, an act of uncharacteristic modesty.'

Gardiner's prologue refers to fashionable Gothic revival architecture and is lit tered with references to classical art and

literature. Gardiner was the perfect patron to encourage Reynolds's classi cising ideals.

Walpole had noticed Reynolds's triple portrait at the Royal Academy in 1774

in which he excelled himself in his acid

response to the picture and the painter:

'Lady Townshend, her head fine, the thoughts old and the flowers too neglected.'

The triple portrait shows the three Montgomery sisters acting the parts of Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia, the three daughters of Zeus traditionally known as the Three Graces. However

Reynolds has mixed his themes to create the required effect as the three ladies

are shown in the act of adoming a term,

or bust, of Hymen, the Greek god of

marriage, which, while not characteris

tic of the Graces, was suited to the sta

tus of young women. Anne, the

youngest sister, had just married

Viscount Townshend; Elizabeth was about to marry Luke Gardiner when the

picture was commissioned and the eldest sister, Barbara, married Hon John

Beresford (1738-1805) the following year. Reynolds frequently painted pro fessional actors and actresses in charac

ter, an already popular genre, and

pioneered the depiction of women other than actresses in this way. Such 'half

history' pictures used dramatic attitudes, gestures and expressions to convey the

story and reflected contemporary acting styles and the fashion for tableaux

vivants (made especially popular by Emma, Lady Hamilton).

Two letters about the commission

survive as testament to Gardiner's input

in the design of the picture and Sir

Joshua's delight in having such a sympa

thetic patron. In May 1773, Sir Joshua

received a letter from Luke Gardiner

introducing his fiancee: This letter will be delivered to you by

Miss Montgomery, who intends to sit to you with her two sisters, to compose a

X!o-7 4r,s

7. ANON: Portrait of Luke Gardiner, MP. Line engraving from the Hibermian Magazine, June 1778. (National

Library of Ireland) Luke Gardiner, like his father and

grandfather, was an MP and he was the instigator of the

Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1781.

7W~~~A

8. ANON: Portrait of Mrs Gardiner as Lady Macbeth. Line

engraving from the Hibemian Magazine, April 1778. (National Library of Ireland). Mrs Gardiner was a noted

amateur actress and appeared as Lady Macbeth opposite the dramatist Robert Jephson as Macbeth and her

husband as Macduff in a production at Luke Gardiner's private theatre in the Phoenix Park Ranger's house.

picture of which I have the honour of being the possessor ... I wish to have their portraits together representing some emblematical or historical subject; the idea of which, and the attitudes which

will best suit their forms, cannot be so well imagined as by one who has so emi

nently distinguished himself by his genius and his poetic invention ... conveying to posterity the resemblances of three sisters so distinguished for different species of beauty.3"

The letter continues with an assurance

that the sitters would devote as much

time as the artist required. Reynolds's

pocket books record sittings for 'Miss Montgomerie' (sic), presumably Elizabeth, on 7, 8, 9 and 11 June; for

'Miss Barbara' on 10 June and 'Lady

Townshend' on 9, 11, 12, 13 and 16

November. There may have been more

sittings in 1774 but Reynolds's pocket book for that year is missing.

By the time Reynolds replied to Luke

Gardiner, Elizabeth Montgomery had sat to him a number of times and had

married Luke Gardiner on 3 July 1773.

Reynolds wrote: I intended long ago to have returned thanks for the agreeable employment in

which you have engaged me ... but

immediately after the head was finished I was enticed away to Portsmouth ... so

that this is the first quiet moment I have

had for this month past. This picture is

the great object of my mind at present.

You have already been infonned, I have

no doubt, of the subject which we have

chosen; the adorning of a Term of

Hymen with festoons of flowers. This affords sufficient employment to the fig ures, and gives an opportunity of intro ducing a variety of graceful historical attitudes. I have every inducement to exert myself on this occasion."

The patron had made certain sugges

tions which were in accord with

Reynolds's ideal of portraiture and was

also obviously willing to pay the price of

three full-length portraits demanded for such a large scale triple portrait. A pay

ment of 450 guineas is recorded before

1776 in the artist's ledger 'From Mr.

Gardiner for his lady and her sisters.'

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW




This was an enormously expensive picture and an important commission for the artist in financial terms alone

- a point which would not have been

lost on Reynolds who was, above all,

a highly pragmatic individual. The artist's response is revealing.

He had clearly begun the head of

Elizabeth Montgomery before he had established the subject of the compo sition - the response of a portrait

painter rather than the intellectual painter of histories - and a reflection

of studio practice among fashionable portraitists where the master painted the head and the rest was given to

specialist drapery painters to fill out. The fact that Reynolds had placed

Elizabeth in the centre of the canvas

must be a reflection of her status as

the wife of the patron. It is also sug

gested that the subject had been

finally chosen as a result of discussion between Reynolds and Elizabeth

9. Gavin HAMILTON (1723-98): Priam Pleading with Achilles for the Body of Hector. Oil on canvas, 63.5 x 99.1 cm. (Tate Gallery). This is an oil sketch for the now lost important history painting commissioned by

Luke Gardiner in Rome.

Montgomery. We can be in no doubt that the finished work was

a matter of great satisfaction to Luke Gardiner as he agreed to

the publication of an engraving which must have enhanced his

public status as a grand patron.

Luke Gardiner, like his father and grandfather, became an MP

for Dublin (1773-89) and was made a Privy Councillor in 1780

(Fig 7) He was an active parliamentarian and was instrumental

in the passing of the Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1781/2, which became known as 'Luke Gardiner's Acts'. His perfor mance in the Irish House of Commons was noted by the Revd

John Scott in 1789: Mr Gardiner's voice is good, clear, strong, and deep, and his action, though perhaps somewhat too theatrical, has often both grace and strength. His language is plain, simple, flowing ... His manner is commonly good, for he is a man of learning ... He exerted himself strenuously on procuring the abolition of the Popery laws ... For a long time he has been the devoted servant of the

administration, labouring with incessant assiduity for the attain ment of a peerage.33

His labour paid dividends as he was created Baron (1789) and

later Viscount Mountjoy (1795).3 As a developer he contributed enormously to the shaping of

Dublin with Gardiner's Row (1769), Eccles Street (1772), Temple Street (1773), North Great George's Street (1776), Gardiner Place (1790), Mountjoy Square (1790), and Rutland Square completed in 1791. In developing Mountjoy Square, Luke Gardiner considered an imaginative scheme, treating the whole of one side as one building, resembling the west front of

Trinity College, with pavilions at either end.35 All this was to end abruptly when Luke Gardiner died in the

Battle of Three Bullet Gate in New Ross, county Wexford in

1798, fighting on the government side against the rebels.36 When considering Gardiner's ultimate fate it is worth recalling

the opening lines of the first verse of his prologue to The Count

of Narbonne: Whence comes it that our Bards old times explore And choose their tragic tales from days of yore?

Is there nor vice nor virtue, now, to raise

The poet's indignation, or his praise? Is generosity, is honour fled,

Are Jealousy, Revenge, Ambition dead?37 Brought up on a diet of classical art and literature, Luke

Gardiner was fired by a set of noble ideals which were entirely

different from the Rousseau-inspired egalitarianism that informed the educational ideas of Emily, Duchess of Leinster and her tutor/husband in bringing up Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his siblings. The nineteenth-century poet Walter Savage Landor wrote an imaginary account (1829) of a meeting

between Gardiner (Lord Mountjoy) and Lord Edward Fitzgerald.38 The encounter was characterised by the mutual admiration of each for the other's idealism and valour.

Luke Gardiner's son, Charles John Gardiner, was created 1st

Earl of Blessington in 1816. In the early 19th century his annual

income was said to be ?30,000. He continued to maintain 10

Henrietta Street from 1798 to 1829, but he was an absentee. His

wife was the celebrated London society hostess, author, wit and beauty, Margarite Power. The Gardiner Estates were broken up

following an Act of Parliament in 1846.39

JOHN COLEMAN is an art historian and National Trust Property Manager at

Knole in Kent.

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1. This article is based on a chapter from my M.Litt thesis submitted to the University of

Dublin, Trinity College(1993), Images of Assurance or Masks of Uncertainty: Sir Joshua

Reynolds and the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. It was

also the subject of a paper delivered at the

UCD symposium, Irish Travellers on the Grand

Tour at the National Gallery of Ireland on

12 Apr 1997. 2. They were the daughters of Sir William

Montgomery (1717-88), 1st baronet (1774) of

Magbie Hill, Peebleshire (Burke's Extinct and

Dormant Baronetcies, 1844, p. 364). Elizabeth

Montgomery died in childbirth in 1783. Gardiner remarried Margaret Wallis (d.1839) of

Springmount, Queen's County in 1793. See E

Wind, Hume and the Heroic Portrait: Studies in

Eigfaenth-Century Imagery (Oxford 1986), p. 44. 3. Sir B Burke, The General Armoury (London

1878), p. 387.

4. R R Madden, The Literary Life and

Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington (London 1855), p.46. A Mr Patrick Hume who

met young Luke Gardiner and his brother

William on the Grand Tour in Italy remarked

that their grandfather had been a footman

(Brinsley Ford Papers, Paul Mellon Centre for

Studies in British Art, London). On Luke

Gardiner and the development of Dublin see

M Craig, Dublin 1660-1880 (Dublin 1980). 5. Georgian Society Records of Eighteenth-Century

Domestic Architecture in Dublin (Dublin 1909

15), vol 3, p. 75. 6. G E Cockayne, ed., The Complete Peerage

(London 1910-40), vol 9, p. 349-53. The 2nd

Viscount Mountjoy was married to the daugh ter and heiress of the 1st Viscount Blessington and there were connections with the Coote

family of Mountrath and Coothill.

7. T W Moody and W E Vaughan, A New

History of Ireland: vol 4, Eighteenth-Century Ireland 1691-1800 (Oxford 1986), p. 70.

8. Craig (as note 4), p. 94, 98 and 331. See also

'Old Dublin Mansion Houses: Their Lordly occupiers in the last century

- 10 Henrietta

Street', The Irish Builder (15 July 1893), p. 160.

9. Craig (as note 4), pp. 103, 139-42 and 178-79. 10. The house was later known as Mountjoy

House. See The Irish Builder (15 July 1893), p. 160. The park was later built on by the

Honourable Society of the King's Inns.

11. M Shaffrey, 'Sackville Street/O'Connell Street', Irish Arts Review Yearbook (1988), p. 144-56.

12. A full description of the sitters and prove nance is given in vol 3 of Georgian Society Records of Eighteenth Century Domestic

Architecture in Dublin (Dublin 1909-15). 13. The inscriptions were placed on the reverse of

the pictures by John Bridgeman, the Knole

Steward, in 1793, who also added the follow

ing 'To gratify the curiosity of those who may be desirous of knowing, I have to each name

sub? (illegible) the country of the person, the

office and the year, he or she, came into His

Grace's service. J. Bridgeman 1793.'

14. For a fuller account of the picture collection

of the elder Luke Gardiner see J Coleman

'Evidence for the Collecting and Display of

Paintings in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Ireland', Bulletin of the Irish Georgian Society, vol 36

(1994), p. 59-60.

15. The Cartoons have been at Knole since 1706

when they were brought there from Copt Hall

in Essex by Charles, 6th Earl of Dorset, father

of the 1st Duke.

16. National Council for Educational Awards

(NCEA), Gardiner's Dublin, A History and

Topography of Mountjoy Square and Environs

(Dublin 1991). Henrietta married Francis

Maccartney MP (d.1759) on 17 Sept 1748

(John Lodge, The Peerage of Ireland, 1789, vol 6, p. 253).

17. NCEA (as note 16), p. 29, Plate 13 shows a

reproduction of a 1779 engraving of the

facade from the National Library of Ireland.

18. E M Johnson, Francis Cotes: Complete Edition

with a Critical Essay and Catalogue (Oxford

1976), p. 105. Johnson refers to another ver

sion of the portrait. 19. Gazetta Toscana (5) records the Gardiner

brothers in Florence on 15 Dec 1770 (p. 199) and a Gardiner on 26 Jany and 28 June 1771

(p. 13 and 103). The Venetian register of for

eign visitors records the arrival of a Mr

Gardiner on 8 May 1771 (Venice, Note de

Forestieri, 759). On 19 Oct 1771 Cardinal

Albani acknowledged a letter from Horace

Mann introducing the 'Gardiner' (sic) broth ers (P.R.O. S.P.F. 105/321 139). A Mr Patrick

Hume recorded in a list of people he met in

Italy 'Two Mr. Gardiners-Irish-good

lads-large estate-g.father a footman.'

(Brinsley Ford Papers, Paul Mellon Centre for

Studies in British Art, London). 20. D Macmillan, Painting in Scotland: The Golden

Age 1701-1843 (Oxford 1986), p. 31-32.

21. L Cust and S Colvin, The Society of Dilettanti

(London 1898). 22. E O'Mahony, 'Some Henrietta Street Residents

1730-1849', Bulletin of the Irish Georgian Society, vol 11 (April-June 1959), p. 9-19.

23. Sir J Reynolds, Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds Collected and Edited by Frederick Whiley Hilles

(Cambridge 1929), p. 35. Tom Taylor inter

prets this reference as being to Luke

Gardiner's own portrait. See C R Leslie and

T Taylor, Ufe and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds

(London 1865). Graves and Cronin confuse it

with a later portrait of his young brother

William (Algernon Graves and William Vine

Cronin, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua

Reynolds, 4 vols (London 1899-1901). A por trait of Luke Gardiner by Reynolds was exhib

ited at the Royal Academy in 1785 (Ellis

Waterhouse, Reynolds (London 1973), p. 181). One version was owned by the Earl of

Donoughmore (ibid). Another version passed

by descent from Luke Gardiner's sister Anne, later Countess of Clancarty, and remained in

the collection of the earls of Clancarty until

1953. This version is illustrated here.

24. Dictionary of National Biography, vol 7, p. 866

67. His wife Harriet, whom he married in

1777, was a daughter of Sir Richard

Wrothesley, Bt.

25. Reynolds's portrait of the Earl of Bellamont was

also shown at the Royal Academy in 1774. 26. G Devlin, 'Some notes on Luke Gardiner and

Thomas Burgh', Journal of the Royal Society of

Antiquaries of Ireland, vol 115 (1985), pp. 163

64.

27. Quoted in G E Cockayne, ed., The Complete

Peerage, vol 9, p. 353.

28. The Count ofNarbonne, A Tragedy as it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden by Robert

Jephson esq., 4th ed. (Dublin 1782). An alter

native prologue, written by Jephson, is also

included as Gardiner's was not ready to be

spoken at the first Covent Garden perfor mance. Robert Jephson was a successful

dramatist several of whose plays were per formed at Drury Lane - see M D Jephson, An

Anglo-Irish Miscellany: The Jephsons of Mallow

(Dublin 1964). 29. The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's

Correspondence, ed. W S Lewis, 1937-83, vol

29, p. 162. Letter from Walpole to William

Mason and see note 7. 30. Ibid, vol 41, pp. 453-55 and 468-69. 31. Reynolds (as note 23), p. 35. The letter is

quoted by Ernest Gombrich in a chapter devoted to the picture, 'Reynolds' Theory and

practice of Imitation: Three Ladies adorning a

Term of Hymen', in Norm and Form (1966), p. 129-34.

32. Reynolds (as note 23), p. 35.

33. Revd J Scott, A Review of the Irish House of Commons (1789).

34. William Stewart, 3rd Viscount Mountjoy (1728-69) died without an heir to his title and

Luke Gardiner managed to have the title

revived in his favour as he was descended

from the 1st Viscount through the female line.

Luke Gardiner also eventually inherited some

of his estates at Mountjoy Forest in Co Tyrone in 1796 and his widow lived at Rash, Co

Tyrone. See Madden (as note 4), p. 64. 35. NCEA (as note 16). Includes illustrations of

drawings in the Dublin Corporation Archives.

36. Viscount O'Neill of Shane's Castle, Co

Antrim, whose town house was next door to

Gardiner's at 9 Henrietta Street, and who was

likewise a supporter of the Catholic Relief Bills was also killed in 1798 by insurgents. See The

Irish Builder (1893). 37. (As note 28.) 38. Madden 1855 (as note 4), vol 2, p. 475-84

(appendix 13). 39. Craig (as note 4), p. 187-88.

t14

10. ALMOND (fl. 1783): Portrait of William Gardiner, 1783. Oil on canvas, 29 x 25 cm.

(Private Collection).

1 6 8

IRISH ARTS REVIEW



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Luke Gardiner (1745-98): An Irish Dilettante

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