Talk:Shelbourne Hotel

Start
Unsourced stub at the moment. Will add to this over the next few days. Bastun BaStun not BaTsun 15:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Was the designer of the hotel John McCurdy (architect)?--miya (talk) 12:46, 27 February 2019 (UTC)


 * It would seem he remodelled the existing buildings into what's there now, yes. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 14:23, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Statues
, please edit in accordance with policy. Those in question are verifiabilty, reliable sources, no original research, and synthesis. And - when there's a dispute - "bold, revert, discuss". Not edit war. Please take this as a warning that you are currently on three reverts, and will potentially be in breach of the three-revert rule if you continue to revert, risking a block.

We have referenced material - newspapers and two books - that state that two of the statues are of slaves. That may or may not be true, but WP operates on a principle of verifiability, not "truth". Pointing to a magazine's photo of an entirely different statue to "prove" that the Shelbourne's statue was not of a slave is synthesis and original research. The Sotheby's web page is not for these statues - synthesis. The original catalogue does not describe the statues as of royalty - original research and synthesis. If you can find a reliable source that says that the Shelbourne statues - specifically, those ones, not other statues of other Egyptians or Nubians - are of royalty, that can then be included. In addition to, not instead of, what is currently there. Note, one of the references you are introducing is a broken redlink. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 17:29, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Having been told twice that I have removed referenced material even though I have added 6 references and deleted none, I remain at a loss as to where the assertion that "Egyptienne" means "Egyptian Master" and "Negresse" means "Kushite slave" is referenced as it remains linked to my reference which makes no mention of Kusites, slaves or masters. I am happy to be corrected on this: but I have researched this quite comprehensively and can find no reference older than Bowen's 1951 book stating that two of the statues are slaves.

The picture in my reference is not in a magazine but rather in the EXACT trade catalogue the owners of the Shelbourne would have ordered these statues from: in a case of mass production, it must therefore be seen as verifiable evidence of what these were called by the people that ordered them and the man who created them.

But can I again please ask where the "verifiable" source for "Egyptian master" and "kushite slave" is?

I am giving up on editing this now as I now see it has again been edited to say all 4 statues are manacled slaves standing on "plynths" [sic]. I am horrified at how easily Wikipedia can be used during times of conflict.,

Castlehamilton (talk) 17:38, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

There is a lot of messing going on here so I have placed the Current Events blurb at the top of the page. The information citing the wording is there but needs to be tidied up to immediately after where the statements are being made. I will work on this now.Financefactz (talk) 17:42, 29 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Cheers, . I'm busy for the next few hours but will check in later., as you say, Bowen's 1951 book states that two of the statues are slaves. You can't then just say "she was wrong" because this source has a statue of another Nubian and this auction page from a couple of years ago doesn't mention they were slaves. That's synthesis and original research. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 17:48, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Kushite and Nubian are really being used almost interchangeably here. The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian kingdom.Financefactz (talk) 17:51, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks : I think that is definitely necessary and there is some tidying up to do now. Can I again just say in my defence, I really am not attempting to prove Bowen wrong because a different statue of a Nubian is called something else. The source I referenced is the EXACT catalogue that Mrs Jury ordered the statues from: not a similar one and not a different one but the EXACT one. These statues were not unique works of art: they were intended to be and were mass produced and would have been ordered mail order from the Foundry in France who printed the catalogue. I found the 1865 edition of the catalogue and, sure enough, there are the two Shelbourne statues illustrated. The EXACT catalogue Mrs Jury used is readily available online and there they are called what I called them: I really did not think pointing that out was original research. The stuff in the newspapers is, I am afraid, woefully ill-informed. It doesn't even come from Bowen but is cut and pasted secondhand from archiseek which again is incorrect as it IS taken from Bowen.

And can I lastly point out again that NO source save the newspapers state that the statues are manacled: one only needs to look at them to see that they are not. The current assertion on the wikipedia page that the 2 Egyptian princesses are manacled is particularly ridiculous. I referenced an African-American academic journal which stated that Nubian slaves were generally represented nude. That again was deemed unverified.

Clearly newspapers ought to be more careful and I ought to shift my thinking on the veracity of Wikipedia!

Good luck with all this: I tried my best: but until I get an article in thejournal.ie stating that the statues actually represent Princess Grace of Monaco and Brian O'Driscoll in costume and can reference that article as cast iron proof that the assertion is correct, it is what it is. ;-) Castlehamilton (talk) 18:36, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

- All four statues have gold coloured metal, anklets/manacles/leg cuffs whatever term you want to use as of last week - call them what you will. I think this is a bit contentious though and manacle usually refers to hand since it is from the latin manus so maybe it is best to leave out that term but the term anklet. Undeniably some of the newspapers are wrong on some points but all of the reliable sources I can find refer to them all as girls or women and two of them being Egyptian with the two outside flanking girls being Nubian or specifically Kushite.Financefactz (talk) 18:46, 29 July 2020 (UTC)


 * (I managed to reclaim a few minutes, but am shortly "off out".), you may well be entirely correct; I don't know, and I don't doubt your bona fides, so I'd say you probably are. However, while it's true newspapers are often woefully ill-informed, most of them, including the Indo and Irish Times, are classed as reliable sources.  I saw the reference to 'Roots', but it wasn't clear what statement it was supporting. I don't have time now to look at that article again (I will tomorrow), but using that - "Nubian slaves were generally represented nude" - to back a statement that the Shelbourne statues weren't of slaves would be OR and SYNTH, according to WP's policies. What we can do is report on what the sources say.  Perhaps something along the lines of "Bowden says X about the statues; however the original catalogue for their sale says Y and makes no mention of X." Regards, Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 19:00, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

I think your current edit is as good as one can possibly get on such a contested issue and has greatly clarified everything in a way which does not take a definitive position either way on the "slave" issue, but leaves it to the reader. I really am grateful to you and for trying to sort this out equitably. This is a particularly incendiary situation and I think my main motivation has been to try to avoid the circular reinforcement of something that is patently wrong: I suspect the newspapers have been using this article to found a lot of their reporting and, as a result, people have been re-editing the article to fit in with the newspaper narrative. Regardless of what the public think these statues are now (which may be viewed as reason enough to remove them), they were clearly not intended by their maker to be slaves and they are not shown in chains. I tend to agree with the "Nubian" indicator of two of them based on my own work: it is my theory that Mrs Jury's idea with these was to promote the idea of luxury, and of course Nubia was the source of the great majority of Egypt's luxury items and of royal brides. But that is definitely private research! Thanks again.Castlehamilton (talk) 19:27, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Having done some research on this overnight it seems quite clear from every example (and there appear to be hundreds of castings of these molds throughout the world) that these are two Ancient Egyptian and two Ancient Nubian/Kushite princesses. It appears Elizabeth Bowen was way off and didn't do her research correctly when she wrote the history of the hotel. Another point which doesn't seem to stack up is if they were slaves why are they being shown here. It seems unusual to have such elaborate statues of slaves. Also why would the slaves be wearing such elaborate clothing and jewellery. If they are all Nubian then why would their clothing have clear Hieroglyphics on them and why would their be cartouches on the plinths. The evidence seems to be leaning heavily away from them being slaves and more towards them being all princesses. We can say with relative and cited certainty now that they are not all Nubian at the very least.Financefactz (talk) 09:13, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks indeed. I suspect our researches substantially overlapped so I am relieved we came to the same conclusions. I had previously done some work for the Shelbourne back before they closed for renovations and knew all too well that Elizabeth Bowen's book was a "novelesque" evocation of the place and its people. Alas all subsequent writers (including the 1999 history) have treated it as a forensic academic history which it was never intended to be. I entirely pin the "Nubian slave" idea on her romantic literary mind. As you have also discovered, outside Dublin and in the context of the literally hundreds of casts of this statue that exist, no-one has identified one as a slave. If nothing else, this issue has educated us all.Castlehamilton (talk) 12:39, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Interesting that here they have the belt/cinture coloured gold here and not the anklets. Financefactz (talk) 13:56, 30 July 2020 (UTC)