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Le Grand, Charles Francis (1792)

Le Grand, Charles Francis

Dublin, Ireland; carver (fl.1792)

Said to have come from Paris and probably related to the cabinet makers in Grattan Street and the carver Claude Le Grande.

Le Grand carved the Lord Mayor’s coach, built by William Whitton, coachbuilder of Dominick Street, in the early 1790s. The result ‘excels anything of the sort very made or seen in this kingdom’. Le Grand has also been credited with the carved pelmet of the Lord Chancellor’s Office, c.1790 (both illus. Glin & Peill (2007), figs 242-4).

Le Grand emigrated to Philadelphia before 1797, where he worked as a carver on the First Bank of the United States. A Corinthian capital from the bank, carved in mahogany but painted to simulate stone, is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Source: Glin & Peill, Irish Furniture (2007), pp. 179-181, 293.