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Click here to subscribeSARA BEATRICE DIBDIN (1874-1963) PAX triptych, watercolour and bodycolour, highlighted with gilt, signed with monogram to each panel 113cm x 158cm Note: Sara Dibden (nee Guthrie) studied at Glasgow School of Art and then in Munich and exhibited at the Royal Academy and Royal Scottish Academy. This triptych, allegorical of peace, shows the central figure allegorical of peace flanked by the arts; music, architecture, painting and sculpture.
CHARCOAL DRAWING A YOUNG MAN WEARING A CAP Signed with initials SH and dated (19)63 lower left 21" x 14 1/4" (53.5 x 36cm) and OIL PAINTING ON MILK GLASS Huntsman Signed with initials MW and WATERCOLOUR Boy fishing from a rowing boat Signed M M Matthews TWO SMALL ETCHINGS F. Robson and EARLY 20th CENTURY COLOURED MEZZOTINT ENGRAVING George P James Another of Mrs Robinson J R Smith after G. Romney and AMATEUR OIL PAINTING Signed C B Holmes etc
WILLIAM COLLINS (1788-1847) WATERCOLOUR DRAWING 'Shrimpers and fisherboys on the shore' Unsigned, attributed and titled to St. Helier Galleries Ltd. Jersey label and Christies label who offered the painting for sale as lot 318 in a sale on the 4th November 2010 - 'The Collection of the Late John Appleby' 7 1/2" x 10 1/2" (19cm x 26.7cm)
A watercolour painting of a cavalry camp scene by Orlando Norie, showing horse drawn carts and troops in undress uniform engaged in various activities, with a hillside behind, and rows of tents, signed lower right, 12” x 18”, mounted and framed in light oak with gilt inner frame, 23” x 28½” overall. Good Condition. Plate 32
A watercolour painting by George B Campion of a Crimean period Royal Horse Artillery Gun team, with trumpeter, passing over rugged terrain on a stormy day, 7¼” x 12”, in a card window mount. Very Good Condition. Plate 38 Note: George B Campion (1795-1870) was at one time the Drawing Master at the Military Academy, Woolwich.
A collection of assorted original 1960's Matchbox Lesney Models Of Yesteryear diecast model box artwork. Various panels and panes of artwork and related box text. To include a small original watercolour / mixed media painting (likely for an end flap) of model Y-5 1907 Peugeot, various information panels for end flaps of various models, box layout for Y-8 1914 Stutz and various other related pieces of paper / printers boards etc. Rare.
Ken HowardParisoil24.5 x 19cm (38.5 x 32.5cm framed)Ken Howard RA (b.1932) is one of the few living artists who are able to capture light so vividly in both oil and watercolour. After art school and working as the official war artist for the Imperial War Museum, he travelled widely painting life and nature with honesty and accuracy. His work is held in many private and public collections including the Imperial War Museum."For me my main inspiration is light and it is through light that I want to celebrate my world." Ken Howard
Wycliffe Egginton (1875 - 1951), a fine framed and glazed watercolour study, 'Moonlight - Loch Lomond' (annotated verso in pencil), signed lower right, 53cm x 73cm CONDITION REPORT: Provenance: From a good private vendor. The Watercolour is behind glass and as such is in very good general overall order although one or two “spots” are noted and these may be under the glass itself and not on the painting.
A 20th century oil painting on canvas of an extensive landscape with red roofed farm buildings, shire horse, etc., signed bottom right Campbell Hunter, 60 x 91 cm approx in gilt frame together with a watercolour of a country landscape by Jane Lampard, signed bottom left and inscribed Morning Mist, Kilcot Valley, 29 x 40 cm approx and a collection of three signed limited edition coloured prints after Nicholas Egon showing landscapes including the Dead Sea, Petra, etc., all signed and editions out of 75 or 100, 35 x 47 cm approx in reeded gilt frames.
A large 20th century oil painting on canvas by John Whitlock Codner(1913-2008, British), full length portrait of Eustace H Button (architect and founder of the Bristol School of Architecture) shown in overcoat and bowler hat, signed bottom right John Whitlock and dated 53, with various labels verso Eustace H Button RWA, FRIBA, JP, RWA, 53, etc., 182 cm x 100 cm approx in grey painted wooden frame together with a 20th century watercolour of a church interior scene by Eustace H Button inscribed verso Evensong - Bristol Cathedral, with Clifton address details, 38 x 25 cm approx in simple white frame.
A pair of early 20th century gouache studies of Egyptian style landscapes with ruins, camels, etc., signed Frank Holmes, 39 x 19 cm approx together with an oil painting on canvas of white roses, a pastel study of cattle in a landscape, signed M R Page, inscribed verso Amberley Landscape, Mike Page, a 20th century watercolour and gouache study of a townscape with blue car, signed bottom left Boshier, with inscribed verso Boshier, Ratby, dated 61, 37 x 51 cm approx, etc.
20th Century Chinese scroll picture by Chow Chien Chiu and Chow-Leung Chen Ying, Hong Kong, a monochrome watercolour scroll picture of bamboo and bird, signed, together with a 20th Century watercolour scroll painting of two figures in a wooded moonlit landscape signed, and another scroll picture, moutainous river landscape, signed
^ A 19th century silhouette painting of a gentleman sportsman and attendant hound, watercolour and gouache, together with S & N Buck ''The South View of Belso Castle, Northumberland'', J.C. Stadler after J. Farington ''Buscot Park'' and two Harpers Magazine graphic designs for November and October (year unknown) 28cm by 22.5cm, 19cm by 37cm, 20.5cm by 31.5cm and 34.5cm by 48cm, 40.5cm by 28cm (5)
Mark Gertler (British, 1891-1939) Harlequin watercolour, unframed 34 x 27cm (13 x 11in) Provenance: A gift from Mark Gertler to Professor and Mrs John Mavrogordato, with whom he stayed at Charmouth, Dorset, and by descent within the Mavrogordato family Other Notes: In 1908, Mark Gertler enrolled at the Slade School of Art, University College, London. During the four years he spent at the Slade, Gertler was a contemporary of Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth, Christopher Nevinson, Dora Carrington and Stanley Spencer. The present watercolour shows Gertler's use of colour and enthusiasm for fairgrounds. His painting, "Merry-Go-Round" (now at the Tate), and another painting from 1915 entitled "Swing Boats" - now sadly lost - may have been inspired by rides at the annual fair on Hampstead Heath. Mark Gertler was a friend of John Mavrogordato (1882-1970), the Greek scholar, and his wife, Christine, and spent holidays in Charmouth, Dorset, with the family. Gertler's portrait of John Nicolas Mavrogordato is at Exeter College, Oxford (1926). Unframed and on buff paper.
§ Alberto Giacometti (Swiss, 1901-1966) Têtes (recto); Nu debout (verso); a double-sided sketch signed and dated lower right "Alberto Giacometti 1947" pencil on wove paper 44.40 x 28.70cm (17 x 11in)Provenance: By repute part of the collection of the artist Elsa Vaudrey by 1955; From the collection of the late Eila Grahame of Claverhouse, sold to benefit the Art FundLiterature: The Alberto Giacometti Database, No. AGD 3759Other Notes: The present drawing encapsulates two of the three most important and recurring themes that dominated Giacometti’s art - (the standing female figure, the bust and the walking man). Giacometti - son of a notable post-impressionist painter - explored these motifs in endless variations and groupings across all mediums; in sculpture as well as in painting and drawing. These activities were inextricably linked throughout his artistic practice. He drew inspiration from his graphic works and would often draw the sculptures in his studio, making quick sketches in his notebooks of the things that surrounded him or caught his eye. He never made formal preparatory drawings for his sculptures - instead he regarded drawing as central to his art, a means of both exploring new concepts and finding solutions to problems. As he himself revealingly said in an interview with Georges Charbonnier in 1951 - “what I believe, is that whether it be a question of sculpture or of painting, it is in fact only drawing that counts.” Therefore, his drawings can be seen as visual reflections of his sculptural processes.Following his return to Paris in 1945, (having spent the remainder of the war years in Geneva), Giacometti began experimenting with the representation of the human figure in space and this marked the blossoming of his mature style. Driven by the desire to convey a sense of distance from the spectator, his drawings played a crucial role in his exploration of figures situated in space. He felt that his figures were only true to his vision of reality when portrayed as elongated and slender, as that is how they appeared to him at a distance. He thus gradually stretched out and attenuated his figures until they became as thin as nails. He began to focus primarily on single, elongated figures - and from this experimentation in drawing originated the tall and emaciated silhouette with roughly defined outlines which came to epitomise this new style after 1947. Giacometti claimed that the end result was a reflection of what he saw when he looked at a woman from a great distance across the street. The actual image of a person’s appearance glimpsed from afar was merely “a blur” devoid of any recognisable features.1947 marked a major watershed in Giacometti’s career. The present drawing embodies the archetype of the tall, weightless figures for which he is best known. The sketches on the recto of this sheet epitomise the series of heads and busts that constitute a large part of Giacometti’s oeuvre. The theme of the human head preoccupied him from the very beginning. He declared that it was only the head of his models that interested him, since the body merely served as an ‘antenna’. Hence, he set out to concentrate his studies on the head and the sitter’s gaze, in particular, as he believed that one’s life lay within the eyes. Since the intensity of the eye contact could only be conveyed by looking full face at a person, he focused on representing his heads from the front, as in the present work. The faces thus directly confront the beholder while the busts are only vaguely summed up by a few lines. The rendering of the faces with a flurry of coursing lines particularly evokes the rough and heavily worked surfaces of his sculptures. This side of the drawing appears to incorporate features from a number of Giacometti’s painted and sculpted portrayals of his family and friends - his brother Diego being one of his most frequent models.In the late 1940s, Giacometti began to develop his remarkable series of standing female figures. The nude on the verso of the present drawing stands serenely in a stylised interior, isolated within a space specifically demarcated by a frame. Giacometti frequently used this framing devi to fix the figure firmly in space and intensify its impact. The indistinct outline and the rigid stance of the figure instantly recall the stylisation of his standing female sculptures. Posed frontally with her limbs pressed tightly together and imbued with a sense of lofty gravity, the model directly engages the viewer and commands a powerful presence. An interesting parallel could be drawn between this sketch with its distinctive, choppy hairstyle and Giacometti’s sculpture, ‘Femme Leoni’. He conceived the original plaster cast in the same year and later named the sculpture after Peggy Guggenheim’s Venetian palace - Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, (as she was the first to receive the bronze cast). Both portrayals of the lone standing female figure are early, iconic examples of Giacometti’s post-war style. The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by the Comité Giacometti and is registered in the Alberto Giacometti database.Condition report: Pencil sketches on a double-sided sheet of paper.Signed and dated lower right "Alberto Giacometti 1947" in pencil to recto. Also signed and dated to verso lower right "Alberto 1947" (signature partially faded). A blindstamp to the bottom left corner of an "S" with an arrow running through it.Recto: Very slight creasing in the upper area above the heads - this is only visible when holding the sheet against the light. Minor scattered spotting mostly along the margins. Two larger foxing spots - approximately 1 cm (0.4in) in width - one by the head on the far right and the other by the left-hand edge, left of the figure's shoulders. Old sellotape marks along the bottom edge. A small red stain by the shoulders of the figure on the far right. A crease running horizontally - 6 cm (2.4in) long - below the figure's shoulders far right.Verso: Scattered foxing, particularly below the figure, with few smaller foxing spots also to either side. A larger foxing spot right of the figure, approximately 1cm (0.4in) in diameter. Old sellotape marks along the bottom edge of the sheet. A slight crease top right, running horizontally about 5 cm (2in) from the top edge. A small scuff to the paper left of the figure's head - 1 cm (0.4in) in width - approximately 2.5 cm (1in) from the left margin.Condition report by a paper conservator:Condition: the artist has used a reasonably good quality paper. The paper is slightly discoloured overall as a result of long term exposure to light. The very left edge is slightly more discoloured. The sheet is currently loose but was mounted in the past. The mount attachment was via strips of Sellotape and the discoloured adhesive remains along one edge (both on the recto and verso) and on the two opposite corners. At some point the glass in the double-sided frame broke, causing a typical glass cut on the verso. The verso is foxed and the recto less so. This is as a result of the microclimate when the sheet was mounted and framed. A brown stain on the verso is starting to show on the recto. The other prominent brown mark on the recto is a glue spot. Many of the minor marks appear to be traces of watercolour and other artist’s media. These and the slight surface dirt were probably acquired in the artist’s studio and so should be left. The pin hole in the top edge probably also dates from the same time. The artist’s technique has caused the paper to stretch locally where most heavily worked. This is of course part of the artwork and should not be flattened during treatment. Similarly the blind stamp of a capital S pierced by an arrow should not be flattened during treatment.
Claus Bergen (1885-1964 German), The German Type IXA U-boat 'U-37' entering harbour at Hamburg, signed and dated '41,' monochrome watercolour heightened with gouache and touches of red, in oval mount, 19x34cm, (Between August 1939 and March 1941, U-37 sank 53 Merchant ships and two Warships. Claus Bergen was a German war artist and counted Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking German Commanders amongst owners of his paintings. In 1963 he gave the painting 'Atlantic' to JF Kennedy, (now in the Kennedy Museum, Boston), and donated a painting of HMS Victory to The British Admiralty
Claus Bergen (1885-1964 German), The German Type VIIC U-boat 'U-749 on the surface at dusk, signed and dated '44,' watercolour heightened with gouache, in oval mount, 19x30cm, (U-749 was launched on the 10th June 1943 and sunk 4th April 1945. Claus Bergen was a German war artist and counted Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking German Commanders amongst owners of his paintings. In 1963 he gave the painting 'Atlantic' to JF Kennedy, (now in the Kennedy Museum, Boston), and donated a painting of HMS Victory to The British Admiralty
Framed watercolour on board depicting rabbits drinking by Dorothea Travers - Smith (1902 - 1985) ( A pupil of Arthur Lindsey with whom she travelled extensively on painting tours in the 1920s, she exhibited portraits, landscapes and still life's at the Royal Academy, The Royal Society of British Artists, The Royal Institute Of Oil Painters etc) (60cm x 35cm including frame)
*Richmond (George, 1809-1896). Portrait of Charles Heathcote Tatham (1772-1842), after the portrait by Thomas Kearsley exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799, circa 1830, miniature watercolour and gouache on ivory, 87 x 69 mm (3.5 x 2.75 ins), framed and glazed Provenance: George Richmond (1809-1896) thence by descent. The architect and designer Charles Heathcote Tatham (1772-1842), whose daughter Julia married George Richmond, was supported in his early career by the architect to the Prince of Wales, Henry Holland, by whom he was sent on a Grand Tour of Italy (1794-96), where he enjoyed the companionship and company of Joseph Michael Gandy, Antonio Conova, Sir William and Lady Hamilton, Angelica Kauffmann, Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, and Antonio Asprucci. The present work is a miniature copy of the portrait painting by Thomas Kearsley (1773-circa 1802), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799 as number 161, which was owned by George Richmond until sold at Christie's in 1897. Richmond's large oil on canvas version of the portrait, dating from 1874, was sold at Sotheby's London on July 4th 2001, lot 134. George Richmond eloped with Charles Tatham's daugther Julia to Gretna Green, and was married on January 24th 1831, having been lent £40 by Samuel Palmer. (1)
Sir William Orpen RA RI RHA (1878-1931) ON THE HILL OF HOWTH, COUNTY DUBLIN, c.1912-14 pencil and watercolour signed lower right 19.75 x 28.75 in.Provenance: Thought to have been acquired from the Waddington Gallery, Dublin by Mary "Molly" Matthews; Thence gifted to her nephew, Desmond Windle on the occasion of his marriage; Estate of Judge Desmond WindleThe rediscovery of the present drawing adds significantly to Orpen's 'Howth' canon, a group of works which record family holidays on the famous promontory to the north of Dublin Bay. Each year between 1909 and 1913, having completed his teaching term at the Metropolitan School of Art, Orpen, with his wife, Grace, and daughters, Mary and Christine, rented the Bellinghams' house, known as The Cliffs, on Howth Head. For all his philandering and bouts of hard drinking, these summers were to be the best times of his life. Here he could be joined by Dublin friends and students and a sense of joie de vivre prevailed. Orpen of course, never stopped working. His brother Richard, a regular visitor, recalled these 'never-to-be-forgotten summer days' of swimming and sun-bathing, but he felt compelled to add that, Bill was always at work and painted many pictures here. It was at 'The Cliffs' that I realised what the 'urge' of the painter is. Orpen's 'urge' was to represent figures on the headland glorying in the freedom of the vast open sky with, in some instances, the magnificent backdrop of the Irish Sea. It was nevertheless a precipitous place. An amusing pen drawing in a letter to his friend, George Charles Beresford, shows him painting with makeshift easel and heels dug into the grass on a steep slope falling into the sea (fig 1). On breezy days, his actors would erect a bell-tent on the hilltop, crawl to the cliff-edge to watch a yacht race, fly kites, or descend for a swim in the little inlet known as Bellingham's harbour. In these simple things, the possibilities for drawings and paintings were endless, and the results, stunning. Fig 1 William Orpen, The Artist at Howth Head, 26 x 20 approx., date and current location unknown Although there were frequent visitors, and some set-piece ensembles, such as On the Irish Shore (Leeds City Art Galleries), Sheep and Goats, and Life Class on the Beach (both Private Collections), Grace, Mary (known as 'Bunnie') and Christine (known as 'Kit') were favourite subjects. Kit famously remembered that her father '… paid half-a-crown an hour for sitting for those portraits - a fortune in those days … only an hour at a time and then a dash along the cliffs for a bathe - golden days'. Should we assume that the girl in the present drawing lies there awaiting her 'dash' down to the sea - and is this Kit? At the time of its acquisition by Miss Mary Mathews in the 1950s the model for the present work was thus identified. For several generations the picture has always been known as Kit on the Hill of Howth, County Dublin. But is it possible that Orpen, having painted Kit (fig 2) just before her seventh birthday in 1913, would then re-present his daughter as more mature than her years would suggest? The girl in the present work must surely be several years older. Orpen's exquisite draughtsmanship persuades us of this. Fig 2 William Orpen, Kit, c. 1913, 94 x 89, Private Collection Orpen's drawing is of course, unsurpassed. At the time, when Chenil Gallery followed its limited edition facsimilies of his drawings with a pamphlet quoting press coverage, it seemed as though a consensus on quality had been reached. Orpen's humanity, his sympathetic line, placed him above the revered Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and in works such as The Yacht Race (fig 3), which features Kit in the left corner, the drawing was 'masterly'. The writer could sense the warmth of the sun, and the breeze from the sea, and concluded that 'when an artist can conjure up such emotion his success is complete'. Form, mass and contour are so finely observed that all who appreciated his emerging Irish national school of artists must celebrate Orpen's achievement. While The Yacht Race drawing, one of two to pass through Pyms Gallery, London, at different times, helps us to confirm the look of Orpen's younger daughter, a closer match is found in On the Cliff, (fig 4). Here a barefoot older girl wearing a calf-length skirt and slouch hat is also looking over the headland. Her hair appears to be bobbed and cut to a similar length as that in the present drawing. On this basis, it can tentatively be suggested that the girl in both drawings is likely to be Bunnie Orpen, Kit's older sister. Fig 3 William Orpen, The Yacht Race, 1913, 52 x 75, Private Collection, photo courtesy Pyms Gallery, London Fig 4 William Orpen, In the Cliff, 1913, 53.3 x 74.3, Private Collection, photo courtesy Pyms Gallery, LondonThe same sensitivity of line also persists in both drawings and the washes of watercolour are delicately laid. Detail, the blue piping on the cardigan, for instance, is noted where it needs to be. In essence Orpen wishes to express a sense of bohemian youth and abandon. Other artists, Augustus John, Derwent Lees, Laura Knight and others were taking up his theme. Yet his essentially Irish version of Baudelairean luxe, calme et volupté was unmatched. On Howth Hill the mind was no longer in chains and the petty politics of the Board of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, now dictating the art school curriculum, could be put aside. 1. Bruce Arnold, Orpen, Mirror to an Age, 1981 (Jonathan Cape), p. 273. 2. Quoted in James White ed., William Orpen, A Centenary Exhibition, 1978 (exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Ireland), p. 42; quoted in Arnold, 1981, pp. 268-9. 3. From 1910 to the outbreak of war the British Isles experienced a series of unprecedentedly hot summers; see for instance Virginia Nicholson, The Perfect Summer, Dancing into Shadow in 1911, 2007 (Penguin pbk ed). 4. Ibid, p. 49. Half-a-crown in 1913 would be worth £13.24 or 14.46 EUR today. 5. Information supplied to Whyte's by the current owner. 6. Christine Orpen ('Kit') was born in September 1906. 7. Like her father, Kit was small in stature. Serious consideration must therefore be given to the possibility that the model in the present instance, is an older girl. At the same time we acknowledge that Kit's hair, formerly in ringlets was straight and bobbed by 1913, the date that concurs with the stylistic and technical aspects of the work. 8. The Art News quoted in The Chenil Gallery, A Portfolio of Ten Drawings by William Orpen ARA, 1914, (Charles Chenil & Co), p. 6. 9. ES Grew, 'The Severe Art of Drawing', The Graphic, 17 January 1914, p. 104. Since Hugh Lane's epoch-making exhibition of Irish Art at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London in 1904, the question of Irish cultural identity in the visual arts was firmly on the agenda. 10. The Yacht Race passed through Pyms Gallery and was included in The Art of A Nation, Three Centurie of Irish Painting, in 2002 (no 31), and On the Cliff featured in its Orpen and the Edwardian Era exhibition in 1986 (no. 37). 11. It would seem logical that Grace Orpen would have her daughters' hair cut to the same style at the same time. 12. William Orpen, Stories of Old Ireland and Myself, 1924 (Williams and Northgate), pp. 4-5. Works from this wonderful collection, included in this 2 October 2017 sale, are lots 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 26, 35, 48, 50, 53, 54, 56, 58, 59, 62, 66, 67, 91, 92, 94, 102, 103, 111, 112, 116, 120, 121, 122, 124 and 169. Further selections from this extensive collection will be offered in future auctions at Whyte’s.
Sir John Lavery RA RSA RHA (1856-1941) STUDY FOR A MOORISH DANCE, 1892 oil on canvas signed, dated and inscribed with title lower right; with James Connell & Sons [Glasgow] label on reverse; with Belfast Art Gallery and Museum label on reverse inscribed with title, and owner's details [Saml. E. Thompson, Edenderry House, Woodvale Road, Belfast] with James Connell and Sons, Glasgow;to Samuel E Thompson, Edenderry House, Woodvale Road, Belfast, by 1921 (£75);Thence by descent;Kennedy Wolfenden & Co. Ltd., Dunadry Inn, Co. Antrim, 15 May 1984, lot 64;Private collection Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Belfast, Museum and Art Gallery, 1921, no. 140 (lent by S E Thompson) Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery: A Painter and his World, Atelier Books, 2010, p.220 (note 63) S.E. Thompson was a House, Land, and Estate Agent, Property Broker, and Valuer of 63 Donegall Street with a home address at Edenderry House, Woodvale Road.For several years in the late 1880s, John Lavery had been hearing from his close friends, Joseph Crawhall and Arthur Melville, about the attractions of Tangier. Work commitments, namely the large commemorative oil painting of Queen Victoria’s visit to the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1888, intervened before he was able to escape in January 1891. From the moment he arrived in the city known to habitués as ‘La Blanca’, those previous two years of confinement to the studio, were set aside and an immediate sense of liberation prevailed as he walked up to the Kasbah. Tangier, glistening in thesunlight, was a melting pot for different racial types – Berbers, Tauregs and Nubians as well as European émigrés of every stripe.1 In its narrow streets at dusk when lanterns were lit after the final call to prayer, one would often hear the strains of Arab music drifting across the flat rooftops.Such was the spell cast by this exotic city that a single visit was not enough and Lavery resolved to return thefollowing winter. On this second occasion his major project was the depiction of a Moorish dance – a subject favoured by French Orientalists such as Delacroix, Gérôme and Benjamin-Constant. His working methods were simple. Where they constructed their harem scenes from models and bric-a-brac in Paris studios, his preparatoryworks would be painted on-the-spot. A series of small studies in oil and watercolour would inform the finalcomposition destined for the Royal Academy the following year (fig 1), and the present instance is one of these.These swift oil sketches of Berber and Nubian heads, individual musicians, the foreground dancer, and various attempts at the overall arrangement of figures made an interesting repository. They passed into small exhibitions in Glasgow or in some cases were given to friends.2 The final exhibition-piece fared less well, and was returned to the artist unsold. After approximately ten years, when he was returning regularly to La Blanca, Lavery reduced its size and repainted it almost entirely.3 We therefore rely on pictures like the present one to give us afuller sense of Lavery’s experience and thinking during the 1892 visit. At this point, vivid colour and remarkablespontaneity alone carry the germ of the idea that emanates from crouching figures who in turn produce the unique sound of an extraordinary city.Prof. Kenneth McConkeyAugust 20171 For a fuller account of Lavery’s long relationship with Tangier, see Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery, A Painter and his World, 2010, (Atelier Books).2 Two for instance, were given to fellow painter, Alfred East, whose London studio Lavery borrowed during his absence in 1896.3 McConkey, 2010, pp. 60-2, 220 (note 63). 9.50 by 7.50in. (24.1 by 19.1cm)
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) SEA FOG, 1909 watercolour signed lower right Acquired directly from the artist by John Quinn (1870-1924) 1909;His sale, 'Paintings and Sculptures - The Renowned Collection of Modern and Ultra-Modern Art Formed by the Late John Quinn, Including Many Examples Purchased by Him Directly from Artists, Sold by Order of National Bank of Commerce in New York & Maurice Léon Surviving Executors of the Estate of John Quinn, Deceased, New York American Art Association Inc., 1927, catalogue no. 305;Whence purchased by J. Toner;Private collection 'Pictures of Life in the West of Ireland', Leinster Hall, Dublin,10-29 May 1909, no. 22 Pyle, Hilary, Jack B. Yeats: His watercolours Drawings and Pastels, Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1993, no. 666, p.159 An old mariner in a heavy coat, red scarf and dark brown cap strides away from the quayside. He has a distinctive gait, with hunched shoulders, hands deep in his pockets and nimble legs, suggesting his years moving about on-board ship. The distinctive combination of robust greens and purples found in many of Yeats' early watercolours is evident here. The shadow cast on the man's shoulders is a deep green while tones of pink suggest the foggy atmosphere of the waterside and the ethereal forms of the waterfront buildings. The painting is described in the catalogue of the posthumous sale of paintings and sculpture belonging to John Quinn, the Irish American lawyer and collector of Modernist art and literature. Lot 305 of the 1927 American Art Association catalogue states 'Figure of an old seafaring man, wearing a pea-jacket and muffler, sauntering from the quay, enveloped in a dull mist through which the masts of a brig faintly gleam in the background'. Quinn was the owner of several important works by Jack Yeats and was responsible for the artist's participation in the famous Armory Show of Modern art in New York in 1913. He was also a close friend and mentor of Jack's father, John Butler Yeats, who moved to the United States in 1908, and of his brother W.B. Yeats. Quinn bought Sea Fog in Dublin on a brief visit to the city in the summer of 1909 after it was included in a one-man show of Jack's work at the Leinster Hall. Quinn was a great admirer of the younger Yeats. In 1904, after Jack and his wife stayed in New York, Quinn wrote, 'He is one of the most simple and unaffected kind-hearted genuine and sincere men I have ever met and I like him more than I can tell'. [1]The exhibition of 1909 in which Sea Fog was included was a critical success. Constance Markievicz commented on the quality of the work shown in it in an article published in the Gaelic American that year. Jack's work, she wrote, 'with its intense originality and life-likeness, seems to appeal to us with almost a shock, and to demand its just due, … as something real and new….'.[2] Yeats and Cottie had travelled in the west of Ireland the previous year, staying mainly in Sligo, where the idea for Sea Fog is likely to have originated. The figure of the old sea dog striding up the town ultimately stems from the childhood fascination that Yeats had for the seafaring life. This began with his journeys along the Garavogue in the ships belonging to his grandparents and his uncles and his great regard for the wisdom of the pilot men, stevedores and gangers that worked on the Sligo quays. 1. B. L. Reid, The Man from New York. John Quinn and His Friends, Oxford University Press, 1968, p.21. 2. Quoted in Bruce Arnold, Jack Yeats, Yale University Press, 1998, pp.160-61. Dr Róisín KennedyAugust 2017 14 by 10in. (35.6 by 25.4cm)
19th Century School, Portrait of a Renaissance Gentleman, watercolour on paper laid on panel, signed in pencil verso "J.E. Lauder" (James Eckford Lauder?), in a giltwood frame. 27cm by 24.5cm. Note: James Eckford Lauder (Scottish 1811-1869), was inspired to take up painting by his better known elder brother, Robert Scott Lauder. He spent four years in Italy where he studied and made copies after the Old Masters of which this may be an example. He became a member of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1846.
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