Amelia Curran (1775 – 1847) was an Irish painter active in Dublin and Rome, known for her friendship with Percy and Mary Shelley.
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Early life
Curran was born in 1775 in either Dublin or Cork to John Philpot Curran, a politician and lawyer, and Sarah Curran (née Creagh). The eldest of nine siblings, Curran was the elder sister of the musician, poet and composer Sarah Curran. During her early childhood the family moved between Dublin, where her father practised as a barrister, and Priory Glen, County Cork, where her maternal grandfather worked as a physician. The family moved to The Priory in Rathfarnham in 1790, where Curran's sister Gertrude died in 1792 after falling out a window.
Gertrude (her father's favorite daughter) was buried in the grounds of the house and Curran's father spend hours watching her grave from his window; he also withdraw affection from his other children and her parent's marriage deteriorated. In 1795, Curran's father threw her mother, pregnant following an affair with The Rev Michael Sandys, out of the family home and forbade her from contacting their children; Curran took over the running of the family home. Her father brought legal proceedings against Sandys for having a "criminal conversation" with his wife, in which his own series of affairs were brought into the public spotlight.
Career
In 1810, through her father, she met novelist William Godwin and Aaron Burr, the American politician. Soon after, she met her lifelong friend, Percy Bysshe Shelley. In 1812 Percy Shelley traveled to Ireland to campaign against the injustices done there under British rule and was introduced to her father. Curran also painted a portrait of Shelley's three-and-a-half-year-old son William (called "Willmouse") in Rome, just before Willmouse's death from malaria in 1819.