48cm x 38cm
The
Shelbourne Hotel is a historic hotel in
Dublin, Ireland, situated in a landmark building on the north side of
St Stephen's Green. Currently owned by
Kennedy Wilsonand operated by
Marriott International, the hotel has 265 rooms in total and reopened in March 2007 after undergoing an eighteen-month refurbishment.
History
The Shelbourne Hotel was founded in 1824 by Martin Burke, a native of Tipperary, when he acquired three adjoining
townhousesoverlooking Stephen's Green, Europe's largest
garden square. Burke named his grand new hotel The Shelbourne, after
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne.
William Makepeace Thackeray was an early guest, staying in 1842 and including a piece about the Shelbourne in
The Irish Sketch-Book (1843).
In the early 1900s,
Alois Hitler jr., the elder half-brother of
Adolf Hitler, worked in the hotel while in Dublin.
During the 1916
Easter Rising the hotel was occupied by 40 British troops under Captain Andrews to counter the
Irish Citizen Armyand
Irish Volunteer forces, commanded by
Michael Mallin, who had occupied Stephen's Green.
In 1922, the
Constitution of the Irish Free State was drafted in room 112, now known as The Constitution Room.
The facade was refurbished in 2016, winning an award from the
Irish Georgian Society.
In December 2018
UEFA's executive committee made the draw for the
2019 UEFA Nations League Finals in the hotel.
Statues
A major redesign by
John McCurdy was completed in 1867, with the
Foundry of Val d'Osne casting the four external
caryatid style
torchère statues. These were based on two repeated
beaux-arts neoclassical models originally sculpted by the prolific French sculptor
Mathurin Moreau entitled
Égyptienne – the two female
Ancient Egyptianfigures flanking either side of the front door, and
Négresse – the two female ancient
Kushite (
Nubian)
figures flanking either corner of the main building. All four statues are wearing gold coloured anklets, and are draped, with jewellery picked out in gilt while supporting a torch with a frosted glass
flambeau shade.
All four statues are on a circular base with a further square metal plinth with
cartouches to the angles indicating royal descent.
In feint writing at the front of the circular base of all four statues can be seen the name of the foundry which produced the statues
Val d'Osne. Of the several other examples of the castings, the most notable can be seen in the porch of the hôtel de ville (
town hall) in the French town of
Remiremont as well as outside the mausoleum of the architect
Temple Hoyne Buellin
Denver, Colorado and in the
Jardins do Palácio de Cristal in
Porto.
In all three cases the door is flanked either side by one
Égyptienne and one
Négresse statue indicating parity.
In July 2020, the statues at the front of the building were removed by management as a precautionary response to the toppling and removal of statues following the murder of
George Floyd and
Black Lives Matter protests. This move resulted from the belief that either two or all four of the statues represented
Nubian slaves shown in manacles.
Both histories of the hotel, that of 1951 by
Elizabeth Bowen and that of 1999 by Michael O'Sullivan, state that two of the statues represent slaves or servants, with Bowen stating "on each stands a female statue, Nubian in aspect, holding a torch shaped lamp". Kyle Leyden, an art historian at the
Courtauld Institute, argued that none of the statues are of the established "Nubian slave" type, and that all four figures wear
ankletsindicating aristocratic status, rather than shackles.
After an examination by Paula Murphy, an art historian at
University College Dublin, concluded that the statues were not representations of slaves, it was announced that they would be restored to their plinths.
After being cleaned, they were reinstalled on the night of 14 December.
In
James Joyce's
Ulysses,
Leopold Bloom remembers the Shelbourne as where "Mrs Miriam Dandrade", a "Divorced Spanish American" sold him "her old wraps and black underclothes