HENRY RICHARD GRAVES (1818-1882)
Portrait of Frederick, Earl of Belfast
Oil on canvas, 43 x 36cm
Inscribed verso on stretcher 'Frederick Earl of Belfast by Hon. H. Graves 1851'

 

Frederick...

HENRY RICHARD GRAVES (1818-1882)
Portrait of Frederick, Earl of Belfast
Oil on canvas, 43 x 36cm
Inscribed verso on stretcher 'Frederick Earl of Belfast by Hon. H. Graves 1851'

 

Frederick Richard Chichester (1827-53), called by courtesy Earl of Belfast, was the second son of George Hamilton Chichester, 3rd Marquess of Donegal and his first wife Lady Harriet Anne Butler.
He was educated at Eton and was a highly artistic and gifted young man, passionate about literature and music. From an early age, he was composing music and eventually became President of the Classical Harmonists Society in Belfast in 1852.The proceeds of his earliest compositions, £100, were donated to a fund to assist in the relief of famine in Ireland, 1846-47.

He was greatly interested in education in Belfast and gave a series of lectures on Poets and Poetry of the 19th Centuryto the Belfast Working Classes Association (of which he was patron) in 1852. He hoped to give a further series on the poetesses of the same period but died before carrying them out. His health was not good and he spent the winter of 1852-53 on the Continent, dying in Naples in February 1853 aged only 26.

His remains were later brought back to Belfast and were eventually placed in the Chapel of the Resurrection, on the Cave Hill, near Belfast Castle. A statue of him stood in Wellington Place until 1875 and now in the City Hall. He was a published author of numerous books- including novels.

There are at least three other portraits of the sitter (a) by Orazio de Manara in the collection of the National Museums Northern Ireland (b) two by Richard Rothwell in Belfast City Hall and Ulster Museum respectively. There are portraits exhibited by Henry Richard Graves of the 6th Marquess of Londonderry at Mount Stewart, County Down and one of the Countess of Enniskillen at Florence Court, County Fermanagh-both National Trust properties.

 

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