MacIRONE, Emily

1827 - 1888

Mary Thompson Emily MacIrone was born on 1 October 1827 and baptised at St Botolph, Bishopsgate, London on 22 February 1828, daughter of George MacIrone (8 September 1788-2 December 1858), of the Stock Exchange, and his wife Mary Ann née Perriman (1791-14 February 1869), who married at St Michael, Cornhill, London on 25 April 1818, her father George is recorded as being admitted to Northampton Asylum 1846-48 then at Heigham Asylum, Norwich 1848-50 for drink related issues. Mary's birth date is sometimes confused with a younger sister Emily Mary, who was born on 27 August 1822, but she died on 21 July 1827. In 1841, as Emily, she was living in St James, Clerkenwell, London with her parents, George and Mary, elder sister Clara Angela and younger brother George Augustus. In 1842 she attended Sir Francis Chantry’s studio and studied at the National Gallery also under Alfred Clint (1807-1863) and Henry Warren (1794-1879) one time president of the New Watercolour Society. In 1851, a 23-year-old artist, living at 5 Park Village West, Paddington with her siblings, 30-year-old Clara, professor of music, and 17-year-old George Augustus, an undergraduate at King's College and later that year Emily was advertising in the Brighton Gazette as giving art lessons to young ladies from Canning House, Brighton. In 1871, as Emily M. T. MacIrone, a 43-year-old professor of drawing, living with her sister Clara Angela MacIrone (26 January 1821-1914), the noted musician & composer, at Fulham Place, Regents Park, London. A landscape and figure artist, usually in watercolour, who exhibited at the Royal Academy 'Nellie in the Churchyard', her connection with Suffolk is tenuous but a painting by her of Southwold dated 1885 hangs in Southwold Town Hall. She exhibited at the Society of British Artists 1846-1879 and was an unsuccessful candidate for the New Society of Painters in Water Colour on several occasions 1852-1866. Emily contributed to 'The Girls' Own Paper' in 1886 an article 'On Copying Old Masters'. Mary Thompson Emily MacIrone died at St Pancras, London on 29 February 1888, aged 60, she was unmarried. Several of her watercolour landscapes of France, Belgium, Italy, and England with a few of old master's copied by Emily were collected for an exhibition of her work at Queen's College, 43-45 Harley Street, London 11-24 April 1889.

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Works by This Artist