Amelia Curran

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Amelia Curran (1775 – 1847) was an Irish painter.

She was the daughter of heroic barrister and wit John Philpot Curran, the eldest child of his unhappy marriage to Sarah Creagh. Her sister Sarah Curran was the fiancée of Robert Emmet. She was a member of the Church of Ireland for the early part of her life.

In 1810, through her father, she met William Godwin and Aaron Burr. Soon after, she met her life-long friend, Percy Bysshe Shelley. His first wife, Harriet, did not take to her, seeing her as a "coquette".

In 1812, when Percy Shelley travelled to Ireland to campaign against the injustices done there by Britain, Amelia was his travelling companion, and introduced him to her father, one of the leaders of the cause. She later travelled to Rome and built up a close friendship and correspondence with Shelley's second wife Mary.

In 1821, she moved to Naples, where she converted to Catholicism. She moved to Paris the next year, where, it was falsely rumoured, she had married and separated from a man. She returned to Rome in 1824, where she spent the rest of her life.

She painted Shelley several times. These are among the few paintings of Shelley painted in his lifetime, and the only ones of him in his adulthood. They are noted for their androgynous features, and their striking similarity to Guido Reni's painting of Beatrice Cenci, which was one of the poet's favourite pictures. Three of her portraits are held by the National Portrait Gallery. She also painted excellent copies of several Renaissance Madonnas, which are now scattered throughout various Catholic churches in the British Isles.

She died in 1847 in Rome, and was buried in the Church of St. Isidore. The future Cardinal Newman presided at her funeral Mass.