John Houghton, Sculptor
(fl. 1741-1775)
Sculptor
From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913
A clever artist working in Dublin in the middle of the eighteenth century, principally as a wood-carver. In 1741 the Dublin Society awarded him a premium of fifteen pounds for the best piece of sculpture submitted to them; and in 1742 twenty pounds for another piece, "St. Paul Preaching at Athens," after Raphael's cartoon. This, a wood panel, is now at Curraghmore, Co. Waterford. Houghton did the carved oak frame for Bindon's portrait of Swift in the Deanery House, St. Patricks, and also collaborated with David Sheehan (q.v.) in the carving of some elaborate church monuments. In 1739, he and John Kelly (q.v.) were paid sixty pounds for work at Carton for the Earl of Kildare, "the familie arms in ye. Pediment in Ardbraccan stone with other decorations of boys, cornicopias, etc." (Account book at Carton). He was living in Duke Street from about 1761 to 1775, in which latter year he probably died.