adabeesley

ah...what a portrait...I am always amazed by the quality of such a photographs. beautiful!

I admire the costumes from the beginning of the 19th century !

The animal rights people would have a field day, loads of tail-less pheasants, ostriches, birds of paradise and blackcocks to adorn the hats, minks, ermines, foxes and beavers rendered naked to warm their necks and good calfskin leather for those soft bootees! Having said that this is an excellent shot, very well composed with just the one lady excised from the group (probably too much of a gossip). I'd say there was a lot of jockeying for position in that group????

Swordscookie Oh, absolutely! And I take your point about our feathered and four-legged friends. I was nearly going to add this one to our animal set: 4 Legs Good, 2 Legs Bad...

A number of the ladies are sporting AOH badges. Large groups in a small studio are all ways challenging but to also add large hats!.Mr Poole I salute you sir!.

This is a beautiful studio portrait of a truly great Irishman who has been almost forgotten in light of the Rising and the war that followed it. He had achieved his objective of Home Rule only to be thwarted by the onset of the Great War and the fudge by the Government of the time! " John Edward Redmond (1 September 1856 – 6 March 1918) was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918. He was a moderate, constitutional and conciliatory politician who attained the twin dominant objectives of his political life, party unity and finally in September 1914 achieving the promise of Irish Home Rule under an Act which granted an interim form of self-government to Ireland. However, implementation of the Act was suspended by the intervention of World War I, and ultimately made untenable after the Conscription Crisis of 1918. He was the elder brother of Willie Redmond and father of William Archer Redmond, both of whom were to serve as MPs in his party"

Redmond married twice, his first wife was a Dalton from Australia and she died after having borne three children. He married Ada Beesley and I suspect that this is Ada as there is little resemblance that I can detect between the young lady sitting at his knee and the lady with her hand on his shoulder!

It is a superb portrait! Looking large I feel I can touch his shoes as the detail and 3d quality is excellent.

The date must be before his death for starters!

His first wife Johanna died in 1889, he married Ada in 1899.