Abstract:
Dr. Joseph Fenn Sleigh (1733-70), Quaker and art connoisseur, practised as a physician in
Cork. He had attended the Quaker school at Ballitore soon after Edmund Burke was a pupil
there and later studied medicine in Edinburgh where he knew Oliver Goldsmith (1730-74). He
was on the staff of the North Infirmary Hospital, Cork from 1759 until his death. Goldsmith
wrote an elegy on him (Tim Cadogan and Jeremiah Falvey, A Biographical Dictionary of
Cork (Dublin, 2006), p. 311). He was a life-long acquaintance of Burke.
Barry, now aged 22, was in Dublin attending classes in figure drawing at the Dublin
Society's Art School (The Dublin Society Drawing Schools, Students and Award Winners
1746-1876, compiled by Gitta Willemson (Royal Dublin Society, 2000), pp. 4, 248).
