I found a crumpled poster of Westport House in a stack of oversized documents that I collected years ago. The artist named in the poster’s printed caption may be George Moore (1729-1799) of Ashbrook, builder of Moore Hall in 1795 (the novelist’s great-great-grandfather).
The picture above is the original that my poster reproduces, showing the East Front of Westport House with the sea in the background.
The picture below is by the same artist, signed and dated in the same year, of the West Front of Westport House with landscape in the background.
Both paintings are signed “G. Moore” and dated “1761.” The signature has been variously reported as G. More, G. Moore, and George Moore. The year has been reported as 1760, 1761, and 1767.
There is writing between the signature and the year on the painting of the East Front. I have not been able to decipher it; still trying though.
George Moore (1729-1799) built Moore Hall in 1795. In the 1760s he was in his 30s and known as George Moore of Ashbrook, also possibly as George Moore of Alicante, Spain. He was the only ancestor of the novelist George Moore whose age aligns with this painter’s likely age.
Because of affinities between the Moores of Moore Hall and the Brownes of Westport House, and because generations of male Moores studied and dabbled in painting, I conjecture that George Moore of Ashbrook and Alicante painted these pictures.
The pictures are discussed in Westport House and the Brownes (1982) by the tenth Marquess of Sligo. Ms. Sheelyn Browne, daughter of the eleventh Marquess who lived in Westport House years ago, wrote to me on 24 May 2024: “these were always my two favourite paintings in the house. I remember becoming obsessed about who George Moore was and was it indeed him that painted them? I was always told by my father that it probably was the George Moore of Moore Hall….”
I have not yet located documentary evidence of the novelist’s visits to Westport House though they are sure to have occurred. The Brownes of Westport House were related to and socialized with the Moores of Ashbrook and Moore Hall.
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