Doe and Hope

Description

The large late Victorian plaster library bust depicting an unidentified priest, of middle to late age, possibly modelled on an Elizabethan, wearing a ceremonial robe with the pectoral cross of lorraine, the whole on a stepped socle square base, showing the original laurel green paint now beautifully worn with age, and surviving from the late Victorian period from the Milford house estate in Ireland, in beautifully decorative condition.

The condition of the bust is simply wonderfully decorative with the old laurel green paint having worn off in several areas and with the whole now of a beautiful sea green colour overall and with the piece not having any restoration or over-painting it remains a joy. There are small sections of chipped loss and pitting to various areas as one would expect but nothing of major distraction.

Built in the early 1800s, Milford House, Co Carlow, was home to the Alexander family, who made a huge impact on the industrial development of the Carlow area over the past 200 years. The family settled in Carlow in the 1780’s and the main source of income was milling. A number of them followed careers in the British Army and there are artefacts passed down through generations and objects acquired through travel to exotic lands.. Milford Mill was Ireland’s largest and most technologically advanced, and the internationally recognised Milford Stud was founded in 1947. In 1891, Major John Alexander III – whose career as a British Army officer included the capture of the last king of the Zulus he was also, allegedly, the first white man to enter Tibet, dressed as a monk – converted the mill to a hydro-electric power station, making Carlow famous as the first inland town in the UK to have electric street lighting.

The Cross of Lorraine, known as Cross of Anjou in the 16th century, is a heraldic two-barred cross, consisting of a vertical line crossed by two shorter horizontal bars. The Cross of Lorraine is an emblem of Lorraine in eastern France.

With a superb provenance and a punchy decorators size and look, this bust is a desirable country house piece.