Amelia Curran (painter)

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| name = Amelia Curran

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| birth_date = 1775

| birth_place = Ireland

| death_date = {{death year and age|1847|1775}}

| death_place = Rome, Italy

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| nationality = Irish

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| known_for = Portrait painting

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Amelia Curran (1775 – 1847) was an Irish portrait painter.

Biography

File:Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Curran, 1819.jpg by Amelia Curran (1819)]]

File:Claire Clairmont, by Amelia Curran.jpg

Amelia Curran was the eldest child of the barrister and wit John Philpot Curran and his wife Sarah Creagh.[http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00045352 Amelia Curran] in Bénézit Her sister Sarah Curran was the fiancée of Robert Emmet. Amelia was a member of the Church of Ireland for the early part of her life. In 1810, through her father, she met novelist William Godwin {{sfn|Polack|2011|p=25}} and Aaron Burr, the American politician. Soon after, she met her lifelong friend, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In 1812 Percy Shelley traveled to Ireland to campaign against the injustices done there under British rule and was introduced to her father.{{sfn|Polack|2011|p=25}}{{Sfn|Bieri|Shelley|2008|p=196}}

Curran also painted a portrait of Shelley's three-and-a-half-year-old son William (called "Willmouse") in Rome, just before Willmouse's death from malaria in 1819.{{sfn|Polack|2011|p=25}}{{Sfn|Bieri|Shelley|2008|p=455}}

She later traveled to Rome and built up a close friendship and correspondence with Shelley's second wife Mary Shelley.[http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp06843 Amelia Curran] in the National Portrait Gallery, London In 1821, Curran moved to Naples, where she converted to Catholicism. Moving to Paris the next year, it was falsely rumoured that she had married and separated from a man. Curran returned to Rome in 1824 to spend the rest of her life.

Curran painted Percy Shelley several times.{{Cite web|url=https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks/percy-bysshe-shelley-155431|title=Percy Bysshe Shelley {{!}} Art UK|last=Curran|first=Amelia|date=|website=www.artuk.org|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-10-24}} These are among the few paintings of Shelley painted in his lifetime, and the only ones of him in his adulthood which was copied by several artists including Alfred Clint{{Cite web|url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp00924/alfred-clint|title=Percy Bysshe Shelley|first= Alfred |last=Clint|date=|website=www.npg.org.uk|publisher=National Portrait Gallery|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-10-24}} and William Holl{{Cite web|url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw40834/Percy-Bysshe-Shelley|title=Percy Bysshe Shelley|others=William Holl Sr, or William Holl Jr|date=|website=www.npg.org.uk|publisher=National Portrait Gallery|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-10-24}} among others.{{Cite web|url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw69152/Percy-Bysshe-Shelley|title=Percy Bysshe Shelley|last= Finden |first= William |date=|website=www.npg.org.uk|publisher=National Portrait Gallery|language=en|others=Black & Armstrong (pub), 1819; stipple and line engraving.|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-10-24}} They are noted for their androgynous features, and their striking similarity to Guido Reni's painting of Beatrice Cenci, which was one of the poet's favorite pictures. Curran's 1819 portrait of Shelley{{Cite web|url=https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks/search/venue:newstead-abbey-4206/page/3#artwork-undefined|title=Newstead Abbey {{!}} Discover Artworks|last=|first=|date=|website=|publisher=Art UK|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-10-24}} was included in the 1905 book Women Painters of the World and hangs at the National Portrait Gallery in London.[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39000/39000-h/39000-h.htm#Page_90 Women Painters of the World] on Project Gutenberg

Curran also painted a portrait of Claire Clairmont{{Cite web|url=https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks/claire-clairmont-17981879-47805|title=Claire Clairmont (1798–1879) {{!}} Art UK|last=Curran|first=Amelia|date=|website=www.artuk.org|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-10-24}} and made copies of several Renaissance Madonnas. During the same spring of 1819 when painting William Shelley, Curran received Percy and Mary Shelley for individual portraits along with Clairmont.{{sfn|Polack|2011|p=25}} Curran had known Mary and Claire since childhood, when she had accompanied her father on visits to their father and step-father, William Godwin, in London.{{sfn|Polack|2011|p=25}}{{sfn| Sunstein|1989|p=58}}

Amelia Curran died in 1847 in Rome, and was cremated to rest in the Church of St. Isidore. The future Cardinal Newman presided at her funeral Mass.

References

Bibliography

{{Cite book|title=Percy Bysshe Shelley: a biography|last1=Bieri|first1=James|last2=Shelley|first2=Percy Bysshe|date=2008|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|isbn=9780801888601|location=Baltimore|pages=196|language=English|oclc=487612237}}
{{Cite journal|last=Polack|first=Fiona|date=2011|title=Amelia Curran's Newfoundland Painting|journal=Keats-Shelley Journal|volume=60|pages=25–29|issn=0453-4387|jstor=41409553}}
{{Cite book|title=Mary Shelley: romance and reality|last=Sunstein|first=Emily W|date=1989|publisher=Little, Brown|isbn=9780316822466|location=Boston, Mass.; Toronto; London|pages=58|language=English|oclc=463438395}}