Over the course of our research for The Samuel Forde Project some of the particulars surrounding the death of the artist himself have eluded us. Most sources agree that his death from tuberculosis occurred on 29 June 1828 at the tender age of twenty-three. Obituaries referred to in these sources, however, do not appear in contemporary newspapers in and around this date. And small wonder, as it has recently come to light that our boy Sam lived for one month longer than previously thought!

Chasing up on our new lead, I recently visited the Local History archive in Cork City Library. The helpful staff arranged for me to view the microfilms for two local newspapers active at the time of Forde’s death: The Freeholder and The Constitution (or Cork Advertiser). Quickly getting the hang of the microfilm reader controls, I felt a bit like Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief (1993) as I scanned through the requested materials. Skimming over Naval reports, columns on female education and rheumatism (unconnected), advertisements for barouchettes and apprentice apothecaries, the movements of Lady Bantry and her Newenham nieces, and transcripts of the King’s speech (in this case George IV, not George VI!), I finally happened on the object of my search: the death notice of Samuel Forde.

‘Where’s the microfilm, Mike?’ Detective work at the Local History archive of Cork City Library.

The Freeholder, ‘Printed and Published (for Subscribers only) by JOHN BOYLE,’ was the first of the two newspapers to report of Forde’s death. The notice, which appears in the Thursday, July 31, 1828 issue, reads as follows.

We have to announce, and we do it with very melancholy feelings, the death of SAM FORDE, a distinguished young artist, whose short life gave promise of an eminence in his profession at a future period, which would have shed a lustre on his native City, and have immortalized his name.  The picture “The Fall of the Angels,” in the recent exhibition, fully bears us out in our observations, and that picture has now acquired additional value by the premature death of this interesting boy. It is unfinished, and we do hope most sincerely, that the purchaser of that sketch, will never let a brush be put to it—but that it may be preserved as a relic of youthful talent and intellect, seldom or never surpassed. While deploring his early fate, his family have reason indeed to be proud at the name he has left behind.

This announcement, which does not specify on which date Forde actually died, was soon followed by a notice in the ‘Deaths’ section of The Constitution of Saturday, August 2, 1828.

On Tuesday last, at his lodgings, Sunday’s Well, Mr. SAMUEL FORDE, a highly gifted and talented young Artist. Though scarcely arrived at manhood, yet, as a Painter, giving such proof of the wonderful power of his imagination, as the labour and study of years could alone be expected to have developed. His unfinished picture of “The Fall of the Angels” at the last Exhibition—and of which we made distinguished mention at the time—is in itself an almost imperishable record of his genius—sufficient to have placed him in the first rank of his profession, and to give assurance, that had PROVIDENCE spared him, he would have been an ornament to his native City. He was of extremely delicate habit from his childhood—with manners the most retiring and diffident, and a sensibility even to painfulness: his family have truly reason to deplore his early demise.

By far the most prominent obituary in the newspaper (the others featured merely comprising one sentence), this and the previous notice are filled with telling detail and appreciation. While it is still little comfort to note that Forde’s life was tragically short, a fact not lost on the obituary writers of the time, based on these notices we can now confirm that Samuel Forde, the young artistic prodigy born in Cork on 5 April 1805, died in the city’s suburb of Sunday’s Well on Tuesday, 29 July 1828.

Noted in the 1840s as having been buried on the south side of St Finbarr’s churchyard under a stone inscribed ‘Henry Murrough’, Forde’s place of burial still eludes us. While we hope that one day we will find the necessary evidence to confirm where his mortal remains rest, we remember him fondly today on this, the (real) 186th anniversary of his death. As those who remembered him on the days following his passing, his unfinished Fall of the Rebel Angels (as it is now known) remains a testament to his great ambition, skill and vision, the ‘imperishable record of his genius.’ Hanging among the very casts he studied as a boy and untouched but for the conservationist’s brush, this monumental painting is the true artistic masterpiece of Cork’s ‘Golden Age’ and rightfully forms part of his native city’s public art collection at the Crawford Art Gallery.

Michael and Shane

29 July 2014, feast day of Martha of Bethany

‘The Master is come, and calleth for thee’ (John 11:28)

The ‘imperishable record of his genius’, Fall of the Rebel Angels (1828) hanging in the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.