William Laffan selects a pair of Louis XV corner cupboards recently returned to Castletown
In March 1763 Lady Holland (nee Caroline Lennox) faced the awkward problem of what to buy a sister who has everything and is furnishing a house. The sister was Louisa Conolly and the house, of course, was Castletown. For help Caroline turned to another sister Emily, Countess of Kildare: ‘Pray dear Sis, find out for me what piece of furniture would be agreeable to Lady Louisa. I hear she likes l’ Anglay’s inlaid things very much, and I would wish to send her something that might suit some of her rooms, whether commode table, bureau or coins, which to be sure one might vulgarly call corner cupboards; but really they are lovely and finish a room so well’. ‘L’Anglay’ is the London-based cabinet maker of French extraction, Pierre Langlois, and indeed almost exactly a year earlier on 22 March 1762 Louisa had been anxiously awaiting the delivery of a commode from his workshop (‘its one of the cheap ones but I shall like it mightily and hope it will come soon’).
The new Lexicon is a worthy member of Dublin’s distinguished group of public libraires, writes James Howley in his appraisal of the controversial new building.
Woven from original designs by Peter Paul Rubens, the Decius Mus tapestries have been reinstalled in Kilkenny Castle following major conservation in Madrid, writes Jane Fenlon
It is the implication of something beyond a simple landscape that makes Martin Gale’s art so compelling, writes Alison FitzGerald as his exhibition continues at Taylor Galleries, Dublin