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THE FOUR STATUES that had been removed from the exterior of the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin city center will be reinstalled, Dublin City Council confirmed.
The story was first reported by the Irish Times this morning.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, the City Council said that yesterday a communication was received from the owner’s architectural advisers, indicating “their intention to restore the statues and reinstall them in due course.”
This will take time due to the “delicate” conservation works that are required, the statement added.
The four bronze statues, commonly understood to represent two Egyptian princesses and two Nubian slave girls holding torches, were removed from the exterior of the historic hotel on July 27 as the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum around the world.
But historian Kyle Leyden had since argued that based on his research of the trade catalogs from which the statues were ordered, the statues were not intended to represent slaves.
The University of London professor of art and architecture history said the statues’ ankle cuffs were likely meant to be bangles, and that all four statues wear these bangles.
An ‘Egyptomania’ had been sweeping Europe in the early 19th century, and these statues were ordered as part of that movement, Leyden added.
He told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland today: “The main attractions of Egypt for these people were really references to luxury and wealth.
“Obviously, it was extremely helpful when you are building a new hotel to address the luxury and wealth of the customers and what you might expect when you actually visit the hotel.
And that would certainly refer more to being representations of aristocratic Egyptian and sub-Saharan African women rather than slaves.
The first reference to the statues as slaves came from a ‘romance’ representation of the hotel: Elizabeth Bowen’s The Shelbourne, written in 1951.
Dublin City Council said it was investigating removal of the statues for possible rule violations around the listed buildings. The removal also raised concerns among the Irish Georgian Society, which had said it was not consulted.
Leyden also argued that there are three “definite problems” with the statues, even if they don’t represent slaves:
In the first place, there is no doubt that they were part of what became a 19th century artistic fetishization of the culture of the East as licentious and sexualized.
Second, regardless of how true the identification of slaves really is, the fact that there is clearly a widespread misconception that they could have been slaves could in itself be enough to justify a call for their expulsion.
And finally, it’s not really my place as a white male to comment on the impact these statues could have on a woman or a person of color who sees them today. But such an impact, of course, can itself be a reason for its removal.
Leyden said that while accepting their problematic nature, he says they are part of the only 19th century hotel of this scale in Ireland, and their removal would have been disproportionate in his opinion. Instead, he suggested putting up a plaque that explains the context or handing out flyers.
Responding to a quote from Labor Sen. Ivana Bacik, who said that “one person’s anklet is another’s shackle,” Leyden said:
In the same way, it is equally true that a person’s problematic depiction of African women can, when appropriately contextualized with a brochure or a label on the statue, be a powerful reminder of the world’s two oldest civilizations, the which is far above everything that was formed in Europe in ancient times, longevity and cultural results, was formed in Africa.
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“And its glories and the glories of Africa were still celebrated in 1867,” he said.
The Shelbourne Hotel has been contacted for comment.
– with report by Cónal Thomas
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