(1736 - 1820), 1st s. of Rev. Thomas Staples of Lissane, co.Tyrone; Trin. Dublin 1752; m. 1 1764 Harriet Conolly (d. 1771), 2 1774 Hon. Henrietta Molesworth, dau. of 3rd Vct. Molesworth [I]; MP 1765 - 1800 [I], 1801 - 2.
1772 - 3 Florence, Capua (2 Dec.), Naples (Dec. 1772), Rome (by 15 Feb. 1773), Venice (10 Mar.)
1774 Venice (11 May)
By the end of December 1772 Staples had 'recently' passed through Florence, where he had left some commissions with Francis Harwood for alabaster vases.1 On 2 December he passed through Capua on his way to Naples with a Mr Tollemache,2 and on 15 February 1773 he was in Rome, with Richard Neville and Thomas Orde following a course of antiquities with James Byres.3 He sat to Batoni in 1773 in Rome (Clark/Bowron 367; Museo di Roma) and he appears in two conversation pieces attributed to Wickstead painted at Rome c.1773, with Byres, Richard Neville, Thomas Orde, and William Young (Springhill, Ulster; Audley End) and with Byres, John Corbet, William McDowall, Sir John Rous, John Chetwynd Talbot and Tollemache (Ham House, and priv. coll.).4 He arrived in Venice with Young on 10 March 1773.5 Perhaps he was also the Staples who arrived alone in Venice on 11 May 1774.5 Piranesi dedicated a plate in his Vasi, Candelabri, Cippi [1778] to 'Sir J.S.'.
1. Audley End MSS (Harwood to Sir Jasper Griffin Griffin, 31 Dec. 1772). 2. ASN cra 1259. 3. Hervey (Wm.) Jnl., 236. 4. R.B. Ford, Apollo, 99[1974]:453 - 4, 461nn43, 44. 5. ASV is 760.