antiquesandartireland.com

Information about Art, Antiques and Auctions in Ireland and around the world
  • ABOUT
  • About Des
  • Contact
  • DIARY OF IRISH VICTORIAN SOCIETY FIGURE AT BONHAMS

    The hand written diary of Irish Victorian society figure Augusta FitzPatrick, later Lady Castletown, will be offered at Bonhams Printed Books and Manuscripts sale in London on June 7.

    The title page of the diary of Augusta, Lady Castletown. UPDATE: IT MADE £1,320

    A clergyman’s daughter she married John Fitzpatrick, the illegitimate son of the 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory.  He was to become 1st Baron Castletown of Upper Ossory and was Liberal MP for Queen’s County (now County Laois).

    At the time the diary opens in 1858 she was at the centre of a scandal about her alleged affair with the well-known preacher F. W. Robertson.

    She had a long affair with the composer Angelo Mariani whose outpourings she translated and copied into her diary. A typical specimen of Mariani’s devotion reads, “”My brain was on fire & people stopped me in the Corso to ask what was the matter, for the first time in my life I broke down at the Opera the other night”.

    She was a friend of the American novelist Washington Irving and marks his death in November 1859 in her diary with sorrow.  There is a portrait of Augusta, Lady Castletown by G F Watts at the Tate Gallery London.  Her diary is estimated at £600-800.

    UPDATE: This was sold for £1,320.

    Comments are closed.