Franz Liszt, Pope Leo XIII and former British government minister Norman St John-Stevas - these three men are linked together by a Cork-born painter called Harry Jones Thaddeus, writes Robert O'Byrne.
Several of the artist's early works, such as The Wounded Poacherand Market Day, Finistereare now in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, but the whereabouts of one of his most famous pictures was, until recently, quite unknown.
In 1885, the precociously successful 25-year-old Thaddeus was invited to Rome to paint Leo XIII, a man three times his age. As the artist later noted in his autobiography, the pope "could not conceal his surprise that so young a man had been chosen to execute so important a work". What's more Thaddeus - to date the only Irishman to paint a living pontiff - was not a Catholic, but that didn't stop the two very different characters from developing a warm relationship.
During their time together, the artist remembered, Leo "spoke incessantly, and so quickly, it was difficult to follow the train of his thought. Of Virgil, Dante and the condition of Ireland he discoursed with knowledge and discernment." Many years earlier, while in London, the pope had heard Daniel O'Connell speak in the House of Commons and in the same year as Thaddeus painted his portrait he appointed Dr William Walsh to the Archbishopric of Dublin.
Ireland was the subject of discussion for another distinguished acquaintance of the artist during his time in Rome. As he subsequently recalled, "While I was painting the Pope, Liszt the great pianist often came to my studio to watch the progress of the picture, invariably sitting down to the piano and playing divinely while I worked." Only a year younger than Leo (and destined to die in July 1886), Franz Liszt had performed in this country on a number of occasions in towns and cities such as Clonmel, Dublin and Limerick. He had also once been the lover of the notorious Irish courtesan Lola Montez (née Elizabeth Gilbert), although it seems unlikely her name would have come up in conversation, at least not while the pope was present. Thaddeus painted Liszt during the same period and this picture is now in Bayreuth.
Initially Leo XIII, accustomed to being obeyed in all matters, tried to direct the sittings and instructed Thaddeus on what form the picture should take. The artist, however, was equally strong-minded and so, rather than depicting Leo as a traditionally aloof figure of religious authority, his finished work shows the physical frailty of an elderly man, not unlike that revealed in Titian's portrait of Paul III some 340 years earlier. By this time, Leo XIII's diet "was practically babies' food - milk-sop and weak soup", as well as large quantities of snuff; when in public, apparently, the pope would be regularly surrounded by attendant cardinals so that he could take a pinch of the stimulant without being observed. On one occasion he collapsed when his snuff box had been forgotten and he was unable to sustain himself. Although his white soutane was generally spattered with brown flecks of the substance, Thaddeus had the grace to omit this detail from the portrait.
Nobody has ever been able to find out who asked a young Irish artist to undertake this job and his own writings provide no explanation. The painting did not remain in Rome but, on completion in 1886, was set in an imposing carved and gilded frame made in Florence before being shipped to London. There it was first shown in the artist's own Kensington studio and the following year went on public display in the Grosvenor Gallery's summer exhibition. There the picture was admired by the leader of the Liberal Party, William Gladstone, whose first Home Rule Bill for Ireland had been defeated in the Commons 12 months before, causing the downfall of his government. He commissioned a portrait from Thaddeus in 1888.
As for the picture of Leo XIII, it passed through a number of owners - including another Corkonian, the shipping entrepreneur Michael Paul Grace, who lived at Battle Abbey in Sussex at the beginning of the last century - before disappearing from sight. When Dr Brendan Rooney published his admirable monograph on Thaddeus five years ago, the whereabouts of the Leo XIII portrait were unknown. But now the picture has turned up again - having, it transpires, spent the past 30 years in the Northamptonshire home of Norman St John-Stevas, latterly Lord St John of Fawsley. The original Tory "wet", he was the first minister to be dismissed from her cabinet by Margaret Thatcher. As a young man, Lord St John - who turns 80 next year - spent some time studying for the priesthood in Rome. In 1982 he published a book about Pope John-Paul II.
From next Thursday, more than 120 years after being painted, Thaddeus's portrait of Pope Leo XIII can be seen for the first time in Ireland when it goes on show at Dublin's Gorry Gallery on Molesworth Street.
Incidentally, within six weeks of his election in August 1903, Leo's successor, Pope Saint Pius X, requested that Thaddeus be the first artist to paint his portrait. That picture is today in the collection of the Crawford Gallery, Cork.