Figure 31.7 (left) Some of the plasterwork copied from Riverstown House at Áras an Uachtaráin.
Figure 31.8 (right) Plaster portrait from Castletown House. The bust in classical drapery is surrounded in an oval frame decorated in leaf patterns.
Michael Stapleton (1747–1801)
Stapleton was a master builder and stuccodore in the Neo-Classical style. He was a pupil of West’s and was able to do creative freehand plasterwork as well as copies of English designers like Robert Adams. A large collection of Stapleton’s drawings and engravings survive in the National Library of Ireland. These show that he designed original compositions as well as copying from published
sources. Stapleton’s Neo-Classical designs look like lace or embroidery. Delicate white plant forms arranged in geometric patterns against a coloured background form the basis for most compositions. Figure scenes and classical devices like urns or musical instruments are used as centres of interest in the designs (Fig. 31.10).
Stapleton’s work appears in the exam hall in Trinity College, Powerscourt House on South William
Figure 31.9 (left) An example of Robert West’s plasterwork from his house at 20 Dominick Street, Dublin. West’s high-relief plasterwork can be almost freestanding.
Figure 31.10 (right) A detail of the stairwell ceiling in Belvedere House, Dublin. In Michael Stapleton’s Neo- Classical plasterwork, figure scenes and musical instruments are combined with plant forms in geometric patterns.
450 NEW APPRECIATING ART IRELAND AND ITS PLACE IN THE WIDER WORLD
