'' by Amelia Curran (1819) Her sister
Sarah Curran was the fiancée of
Robert Emmet. Amelia was a member of the
Church of Ireland for the early part of her life. In 1810, through her father, she met novelist
William Godwin and
Aaron Burr, the American politician. Soon after, she met her lifelong friend,
Percy Bysshe Shelley. In 1812 Percy Shelley traveled to Ireland to campaign against the injustices done there under British rule and was introduced to her father. Curran also painted a portrait of Shelley's three-and-a-half-year-old son William (called "Willmouse") in Rome, just before Willmouse's death from
malaria in 1819. She later traveled to Rome and built up a close friendship and correspondence with Shelley's second wife
Mary Shelley. In 1821, Curran moved to
Naples, where she converted to
Catholicism. Moving to Paris the next year, it was falsely rumoured that she had married and separated from a man. Curran returned to Rome in 1824 to spend the rest of her life. Curran painted Percy Shelley several times. These are among the few paintings of Shelley painted in his lifetime, and the only ones of him in his adulthood which was copied by several artists including
Alfred Clint and William Holl among others. They are noted for their androgynous features, and their striking similarity to
Guido Reni's painting of
Beatrice Cenci, which was one of the poet's favorite pictures. Curran's 1819 portrait of Shelley Curran also painted a portrait of
Claire Clairmont and made copies of several
Renaissance Madonnas. During the same spring of 1819 when painting William Shelley, Curran received Percy and
Mary Shelley for individual portraits along with Clairmont. Curran had known Mary and Claire since childhood, when she had accompanied her father on visits to their father and step-father,
William Godwin, in London. Amelia Curran died in 1847 in Rome, and was cremated to rest in the Church of St. Isidore. The future
Cardinal Newman presided at her funeral
Mass. ==References==