Adam's IRISH OLD MASTERS 5th November 2024

64 Never previously offered on the open market, having been in the family of the sitters for a decade shy of three centuries, from 1734 until 2024, these portraits, by Charles Jervas, are iconic works of Georgian Ireland. Thomas Carter, was one of the most influential fig - ures of eighteenth-century Dublin, a Member of Par - liament, Master of the Rolls and architectural patron on a lavish scale. His wife, Mary, née Claxton, was the first cousin of Edward Lovett Pearce (1699-1733), the great architect of Dublin’s Parliament House and Bellamont Forest, County Cavan. The townhouse that Pearce designed for the couple, 9 Henrietta Street, has been described as ‘perhaps the most palatial residence’ on the famous street, it- self ‘the best address’ in Dublin, with one of the most impressive stair halls in the city. ‘For more than three decades. This ambitious man held court there, estab- lishing a prime position among parliamentary power brokers, social strategists and arbiters of taste’ (Melanie Hayes, The Best Address in Town, Henrietta Street, Dublin and its First Residents , 2020). Offaly-born, Charles Jervas meanwhile was the Principal Painter to the Monarch, a friend of Pope and Swift, and although London-based he painted this portrait in Dublin in 1734 as he proudly inscribes on the canvas next to his signature. Carter was born in Robertstown, County Meath, in the pivotal year 1690 and his life proceeded in par - allel with the consolidation of the Williamite settle- ment of Ireland in all its complexity. His father, also Thomas, had performed ‘distinguished service’ for King William at the Boyne but the younger Thomas would adopt a stance as a Protestant patriot in the Dublin parliament which often set him in opposition to the Dublin Castle administration. Carter pursued an enormously successful and lucrative career at the Irish bar, before purchasing, for £11,000, the position of Master of the Rolls. In 1719 Carter married Mary Claxton, a daughter and heiress of Thomas Claxton and Lucy Pearce, making Mary, shown here, the first cousin of Edward Lovett Pearce. The year of his marriage Carter was elected for Trim, as a member of the parliament then sitting in Chichester House, Pearce’s great building on College Green would not be started for another decade. He later represented Hillsborough, County Down, between 1728-61. Other positions which Carter filled included Ranger of the Curragh, Governor of the Royal Hospital and Ranger of Dublin Castle while he was a leading figure in the passing of one of the early road acts. By 1745 Carter was characterised by Lord Chester - field, the viceroy, as ‘the leading person in the [Irish] Parliament’ while the Earl of Shelburne described him as ‘a man of a very original character, whose uncommon sagacity and shrewdness as well as depth of understanding, would have distinguished and advanced him in any country’. Not everyone agreed and, it must be said that principled idealism was not an obvious path to success in the murky politics of mid-century Ireland. Carter was described by Horace Walpole as ‘an able and intriguing man’ with a ‘slender reputation for integrity’. (Walpole was also distinctly antipathetic towards Jervas who had been so much patronised by his father, the Prime Minister, Robert Walpole). More recently Melanie Hayes notes that Carter was ‘known for his tricky personality and propensity for making enemies’. Carter did howev - er stand up for the rights of the Dublin parliament against Westminster when, in 1753, he ‘opposed the claim of the crown to dispose of unappropriated revenue in the Irish exchequer and engineered the defeat of this money bill’ ( Oxford , DNB). For this he fell from royal favour and was dismissed from his po- sition as Master of the Rolls in 1754. He was, however, compensated with the office of Principal Secretary of State, and Keeper of the Privy Seal, which brought an additional salary of £1,200 per annum. If Carter was too shrewd an operator to be excluded from pow- er completely, he was ‘regarded by Dublin Castle as one who was most against English interests in Ireland’ ( ibid ). Carter’s great house at number 9 Henrietta Street is generally accepted as having been designed by Pearce and, while there is no documentary evi- dence to confirm this, his authorship is compellingly suggested by the sheer quality of the house and by Carter’s direct family connection’s to the architect. The house’s design clearly relates to No. 30 Old Burlington Street, London, designed, in 1721, by Lord Burlington (1694-1753) and Colen Campbell (1676- 1729), making a ‘tangible and tantalising’ connection between ‘the greatest figures in the Irish and English Palladian revival’ (Christine Casey, Dublin , 2005). Connections between the two houses can be traced via both patron and architect. Carter was politically very close to Henry (‘Speaker’) Boyle (1682-1764), lat - er 1st Earl of Shannon (his neighbour at No. 11 Henri - etta Street), who was a cousin of the ‘Architect-Earl’, while Burlington’s client at 30 Old Burlington Street was Algernon Coote (1689-1744), Earl of Mountrath, whose cousin, Thomas Coote of Cootehill (c. 1655