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THE OAK FURNITURE FROM BELLE ISLE, CO. FERMANAGH
The following lots (41, 46, 56, 60, 62, 69, 73, 74, 76, 149, 150, 151, 540) were removed from the romantic house Belle Isle
on the shores of Lough Erne and are witness to the historicism that swept 19th century Ireland in the mid-19th century
when in an interlude of prosperity and with the Famine behind them, the Anglo-Irish gentry set about making their houses
(and their pedigrees) seem older and more complex than was the actual case.
The Porter family had bought Belle Isle from the heirs of Sir Arthur Gore, the first and last Earl of Ross, but in the 1880s fell
victim to the ill-taste of the time and recast the unassuming house as an ‘English’ Tudor manor house in a style popular-
ised in Victorian suburbia à la Norman Shaw.
It seems likely that the present lots were acquired for Belle Isle at that time. Belle Isle, and its contents, were bought by
the present owner from Miss Lavinia Baird, the last of the Porters.
It is currently undergoing a thorough restoration.