Charles Stewart Parnell by Mary Grant Victorian plaster
sculpture still remains an unfashionable and little researched
subject. Recent research sheds light on the production process
for Mary Grant’s plaster bust of the Irish politician, Charles
Stewart Parnell, created in 1892, the year after his death. The
bust is on display in room 21 at the National Portrait Gallery.
Mary Grant (1831-1908), one of the few women working
professionally as a sculptor in Victorian England, was a niece
of Sir Francis Grant, portrait painter, President of the Royal
Academy and Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. The Irish
patriot, politician and landowner, Charles Stewart Parnell
(1846-91), was leader of the Irish party in the House of
Commons, and a passionate advocate of Irish home rule. Many
sculptors employed professional plaster workers, sometimes
called sculptors’ moulders, to undertake specialist work in the
sculpture production process. Mary Grant was no exception and
used Fernando Meacci (c.1836-1893), an Italian-