Lot 187: Jeremiah Barrett (d.1770) A conversation portrait

Jeremiah Barrett (d.1770) A conversation portrait of the Children, William, Elizabeth and Margaret King, of James 4th (last) Baron Kingston of Mitchelstown with a pet doe and dog. In a contemporary carved giltwood frame. Oil on canvas, 137 x 168cm Ref: Gurr Johns Inventory 1914 p.109 ú35 "Gallery" The surviving daughter Margaret, daughter of Elizabeth Meade (Clanwilliam), inherited the vast Mitchellstown Estate of the White Knights. She married Richard Fitzgerald of mount Ophanlis, and their only daughter Caroline married, as arranged, the 2nd Earl of Kingston thus uniting the two branches of the King family. Life at Mitchellstown was recorded by two famous employees of the Kings, Arthur Young the agriculturalist and Mary Wollstonecruft who probably sketched out the basis of Vinchication of the Rights of Women whilst governess to the King children. It was not without excitement, in 1799 Lord Kingston shot dead Colonel Fitzgerald, his wife's illegitimate half-brother in the hotel in Mitchellstown for abducting his 17 year old daughter Mary Elizabeth and his eldest daughter Margaret having married the 2nd Earl of Mount Cashell left him to befriend Shelley in Italy and is The Lady in 'The Sensitive Plant'. Provenance: Rockingham House