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The plinth statues outside Dublin’s historic Shelbourne Hotel will soon be restored.
The four statues, depicting women holding torches, have been a familiar sight for generations of residents and Dubliners.
They had been in the front of the hotel for 153 years, but were removed in July after being mistakenly identified as slaves.
The hotel commissioned a study to investigate their origins and concluded that they are not representations of slaves.
Art historian Kyle Leyden conducted his own independent investigation and found evidence in the archives of its depiction.
“They were created in France and were for Egyptian and sub-Saharan women,” she told RTE News.
Leyden believes that they are an “aristocratic representation” of the Nubian and Egyptian princesses rather than representations of slaves.
“They were probably bought as part of the ‘Egyptian craze’ that made all things Egyptian fashionable in the 19th century and they were probably seen as representations of luxury and wealth,” Leyden said.
Mathurin Moreau’s pieces were sculpted in 1867 in Paris.
The decision to remove them prompted complaints to Dublin City Council that the removal was a building permit violation.
Now that they are climbing back up, some scholars believe that it is time for a radical change in thinking.
“I think it’s a missed opportunity,” Dr. Ebun Joseph, professor of Black Studies at UCD, told RTÉ News.
“Ireland was offered to correct a mistake that was made and we have overlooked it coming back to reinforce a negative presentation that is there,” he said.
Dr. Joseph is very critical of the decision to place the four statues front and center outside the Shelbourne Hotel.
“We are in 2020, let’s make history for the next generation,” he said.
“Let them say this is the year that all the racist representations were removed and housed somewhere. That is the story I am looking for,” Joseph said.
But art historian Kyle Leyden disagrees.
“It would be disproportionate to remove them as the Shelbourne Hotel is the only surviving 19th century hotel of this scale in Ireland and the statues are part of the hotel’s history and were not intended to have political significance,” he said.
The Shelbourne Hotel has confirmed that the statues will be restored to their plinths after they have been cleaned and restored to their former glory.
Once they are back in position, a plaque will be installed to explain their background and history to the public.
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