Casino At Marino Interior
Walking back through this door shows very clearly the contrast between the exterior and the interior scale of the building. Casino Marino Malahide Road Dublin 3. All the architectural grandeur of the Renaissance Europe is brilliantly celebrated in Charlemont's subtle and deceptively simple villa, the Casino, at Marino, outside Fairview, in Dublin.
From the IAR Spring 2014 edition
This summer the Casino in Marino hosts an exhibition that captures the original splendour of the lost demesne, writes Rose Anne White
Do be a good Boy and busy yourself.’ So Edward Murphy wrote to the young Viscount of Charlemont on his return to Ireland from an extended Grand Tour in the summer of 1755. The twenty-seven-year-old James Caulfeild had settled into melancholy, as he sought to find a place for himself again on his native shores. He had grown close to Murphy, once his tutor and later his travelling companion, and was attentive when Murphy advised him to ‘Shake off that abominable Listlessness’. Later, Charlemont would write that it was ‘…with this in View I began those improvements at Marino.’
Although there were estate lands in Co Tyrone, and a townhouse in first Jervis Street and later Rutland Square, it was a Dublin suburb straddling Clontarf and Donnycarney that Charlemont would spend the next two decades improving. Inspired by his travels from London to Egypt, and everywhere in between (particularly Italy) he poured himself into creating an ideal landscape. Situated on the coast, so that he could avail of that 18th-century cure-all, a chilly sea-bathe, the pocket of land that he was to name Marino also afforded unrivalled views over the entire bay and city. Charlemont engaged sculptors, gardeners, labourers, and many other craftspeople, both local and invited from abroad, to create his paradise. A full complement of Georgian garden ornaments was created: a hermitage, a water cascade, a serpentine lake with an island swan roost, a seat carved in the Gothic style and a Gothic room, also known as Rosamund’s bower. There was also the Casino, rescued in the 1930s and restored in the 1980s by the Office of Public Works, and long considered the gem of neo-classical architecture in Ireland. The miniature demesne remained in use by the Caulfeilds for more or less the next hundred years, until the 3rd Earl broke up the estate for sale in 1876. All that remains today is the Casino, solitary in a modern square of grass, its garden context vanished.
At its peak under the 1st Earl, Marino was one of the most illustrated of landscapes. Visitors from the upper echelons of Irish and English society, such as Mrs Delany, John Wesley, and Charles T Bowden, described it at lyrical length. From the early 19th century, the roof of the Casino remained a popular spot from which to sketch views of Dublin. In fact, glimpses of Lord Charlemont’s garden at Marino are to be found in archives and collections all over Dublin, and now for the first time, are the subject of an exhibition in the interior of the demesne’s last remaining building. These ‘glimpses’ range from a print portrait of the gardener, Matthew Peters, in the National Gallery of Ireland (Fig 2), to a long aquatinted view of Marino in the Hugh Lane Gallery (Fig 3); from the delightfully eclectic family scrapbook called the Charlemont Album in the Paul Mellon Collection, held at Yale University (Fig 5), to the only known portrait of sculptor Simon Vierpyl hanging in the former Blue Coat School; and from the cast of the Fighting Gladiator in the Crawford Gallery, Cork, to plant specimens in the herbarium of the National Botanic Gardens. Hints of Lord Charlemont’s garden are all around us.
Exciting new discoveries have made this exhibition timely. The original drawn designs of the attic statues on the Casino exterior (Fig 4), by Giovanni Battista Cipriani, are the subject of new research by William Laffan and Kevin Mulligan in the current volume of Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies (XVI). A sketch in the albums of Samuel Frederick Brocas, its subject previously unrecognized, has been newly identified by Ruth Musielak as located in Marino and portraying the Gothic Room. Current research on the demesne at Marino is presented in full in the accompanying exhibition publication, and at this year’s annual Irish Georgian Society Study Day. This summer will see the Casino at Marino turned inside out, as the interior plays host to its garden. Through innovative and interactive exhibits the lost demesne will be recreated. Hear the voice of Mrs Delany compliment Charlemont on his pineapples in the Blue Salon, leaf through facsimiles of 19th-century family scrapbooks, and be guided along the trail of the Earl’s garden demesne through a GPS-coordinated smartphone app. You will be following in the footsteps of 18th-century locals, to whom Charlemont opened his garden for their enjoyment. This, his lex hortorum, was commented on by Bowden in A Tour Through Ireland (1791); the same passage gives the exhibition its name.
‘This is one of the most beautiful and elegant seats in the world, happily situated, and in a demesne improved in the highest taste, comprehending 238 acres, laid out in plantations… lawns, and a delightful park… The temple is situated in the park – a monument of his Lordship’s refined taste. The Gothic room is a very curious and beautiful structure. The hermitage is nature itself. There is also a cane-house constructed after the Eastern model. Art and nature unite in rendering this a most desirable residence. What obligation are not the citizens of Dublin under to his Lordship for having the gates of this terrestrial paradise opened to them whenever they chuse [sic] to walk through it!’
‘Paradise Lost: Lord Charlemont’s Garden’ at the Casino, Marino, Dublin, 1 May – 31 October 2014.
Rose Anne White is an independent curator and researcher.
James Caulfeild, then 4th Viscount Charlemont, was just shy of thirty years old when he began the architectural project which would become the Casino.
Architecture was a great interest of his, and he had studied plenty of examples of classical buildings while travelling through the continent. As a result of his travels, he was also able to count many influential designers as friends. While in Rome, he had become acquainted with those he would eventually hire to create his estate at Marino. This included William Chambers, Simon Vierpyl, Johann Heinrich Müntz, and Giovanni Battista Cipriani. Charlemont’s heavy involvement in the composition of the buildings at Marino, as well as his house in Rutland Square, is clear from the correspondence that has survived. In many ways, what he created at Marino was a living testament to the different cultures and styles he had experienced while travelling, and his buildings there were fitting exhibition spaces to the huge number of souvenirs and collectable items he brought home. In this portrait, he is a young man in Rome, with the Colosseum in view behind him.
Other buildings dotted the Marino estate.
Closest to the Casino was the Gothic Room (also known as Rosamund’s Bower) – a small, cathedral-style structure that was possibly used as a banqueting house. There was also the Hermitage; a rustic, romantic, primitive garden dwelling that was partially formed from twisted tree roots and branches. Plans remain for an Egyptian Room, which was never built. Whereas these complementary buildings showcased other architectural styles, the Casino itself was an homage to the classical. Today, it is widely referred to as the most important example of neoclassical architecture in Ireland.
The plan of the Casino is in the shape of a Greek cross, and it is only fifty feet square.
There are three floors containing sixteen rooms. Although small, they are entirely habitable, with service rooms in the basement, reception rooms on the main floor, and sleeping quarters on the upper floor. There is, however, no evidence of any long term occupation of the building. The exterior of the building is that of a one-room Greek temple, so the complexity of the interior was achieved by remarkable architectural design. This includes faux windows, gib doors, hollow columns, and disguised chimneys. Only half of the great front door actually swings open to admit entrance.
Very little is known about how the inside of the building originally looked. There are brief descriptions surviving in Charlemont’s own correspondence or in that of visitors, or rare mentions in sales catalogues. The exterior of the building is heavily decorated. Four statues adorn the attic storey; Bacchus, Ceres, Venus, and Apollo declare the abundance and love of good living that inspired the creation of the Casino. Around the chimney-urns curve mermaids and mermen. The ‘ceilings’ of the outside porches are densely carved to create a stucco effect. Four large Egyptian-style lions guard the corners.
The curiosity of the place consists of a very fine Temple, Lord Charlemont is building at very great expense… The architecture is very correct and the stonework well executed. In the inside is a room for dining in and overlooking the fine prospect, which may contain the company of 12 or 14 people. On one side is a closet which is to hold books, the ceiling is a dome on which is to be painted the northern hemisphere and round ye frieze, ye signs of the Zodiac. On ye other side is a little drawing room… over these are two tolerable bedchambers and two smaller ones for servants. The floors are parquetted in the most sumptuous wood, painted satin furniture, gilding and every other expense is lavish’d on ye decoration of it.
William Chambers was the architect who designed the Casino.
Born in Sweden to a Scottish father in 1723, he spent the first few years of his working life travelling to and from China as an agent of the Swedish East India Company. At the age of twenty-six, he began training as an architect in Paris, later living in Rome, where he was a member of Charlemont’s circle. He moved to London to establish his practice in the same year that Charlemont returned to Dublin (1755). He achieved great success in England, with much employment from King George III and his mother, the Dowager Princess Augusta. His Treatise on Civil Architecture, published in 1759, was a huge influence on Palladian neoclassicism in Britain. The Casino appeared in this Treatise as a plate illustration (image below). Chambers would go on to count James Gandon as one of his students.
As well as the Casino at Marino, Chambers completed designs for Charlemont House and Trinity College, and for modifications to Rathfarnham Castle, Castletown House, and Leinster House, among others. He never, however, visited Ireland in person. His projects with Charlemont were discussed at great length, over two decades, in numerous letters; many of these can be read today in the Royal Irish Academy. One of his original drawings for the Casino is on display in the building.
Casino At Marino Interior &
London-born Simon Vierpyl oversaw the implementation of Chambers’ designs for the Casino at Marino.
He was an accomplished sculptor and builder, who was living in Rome at the same time as Charlemont and Chambers. Impressed with his work on a commission of terracotta copies of statues and busts (now in the Royal Irish Academy), Charlemont invited him to come to Ireland. Vierpyl arrived in 1756, and supervised work on the Casino, something he was complimented for in Chambers’ Treatise. He stayed in Ireland for the rest of his life, working as a builder or developer on many central Dublin sites. He married twice, and died in Athy, Co. Kildare in 1810 at the age of around eighty-five.
Casino At Marino Interior Photos
Giovanni Battista Cipriani (1727-1785) was an Italian painter.
He was another member of Charlemont’s circle in the early 1750s in Rome; in 1755, he also left the city, and travelled in England in the company of Joseph Wilton. Wilton was a sculptor whose work is represented at the Casino in the four lions which guard it. Cipriani’s contribution was the design of the four attic statues, and the dragon gates that formed the entrance to the estate. Copies of his original sketches for the four statues, as well as a revised sketch of Venus, can be seen on display in the State Bedroom today (click here to see the online exhibition). The gods represented (Ceres, Bacchus, Venus, and Apollo) were chosen by Charlemont and Chambers, designed by Cipriani, and then sculpted by either Wilton or Vierpyl on site.