WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART MONDAY 2 DECEMBER 2024 FROM 6PM

131 IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART · 2 DECEMBER 2024 AT 6PM 97 Attributed to John Astley (English, 1724-1787) PORTRAIT OF SIR CAPEL MOLYNEAUX BART oil on canvas inscribed with sitter’s name lower right 25.25 by 21.25in. (64.1 by 54cm) Frame Size: 33 by 29in. (83.8 by 73.7cm) Provenance: Molyneux family, Castle Dillon, Armagh and Trewyn in Monmouthshire; Aldridge’s, Bath, 12 May 1981, lot 170; with David White, 1981; Irish Investment Bank, Dublin; Collection of Bank of Ireland Capel was the son of Sir Thomas Molyneux, 1st Baronet. In 1738 he succeeded his brother Daniel to the title of Baronet and to all the family estates except Castle Dillon, which he did not inherit until 1759. He was appointed High Sheriff of Armagh in 1744 and sat for Clogher in the Irish House of Commons from 1761 to 1768. Later he represented Dublin University (1776) and Clogher again in 1783. He was invested to the Privy Council of Ireland in 1776. John Astley studied with Joshua Reynolds in the 1740s under the artist Thomas Hudson. He later went to study in Rome and Florence in 1747 (one of his teachers was Pompeo Batoni), before establishing his career in Dublin, and later settling in England. This portrait was listed in the Inventory of Pictures at Castle Dillon taken by Gillows in October 1913, as hanging in the dinning room. It is the study portrait for Astley’s group of the family which used to hang in the entrance hall and is now in the Ulster Museum. This study portrait was removed from Castle Dillon circa 1922, by William Arthur Molyneux d.1928 the surviving son of the 9th Baronet and was listed in his house at Trewyn in Monmouthshire, (see Portraits in Welsh Houses Vol.2 South Wales, No 18, page 170 by John Steegman), Later being sold by the executors of his widow in Aldridge’s sale rooms in Bath on the 12th May 1981 as Lot 170. Bought by DavidWhite, who told me that he sold it on to the present vendors. We are very grateful to Gerard Molyneux for providing this additional information . €3,000-€5,000 (£2,520-£4,200 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot97