Sarah Cecilia Harrison HRHA (1863 - 1941) Portrait of Sir H...

Hammer

€8,500

Sarah Cecilia Harrison HRHA (1863 - 1941) Portrait of Sir Hugh Lane (1875-1915) Director of the National Gallery of Ireland 1914-1915 Oil on canvas, 61 x 45.5cm (24 x 18) Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent Sir Hugh Percy Lane was born in Cork in 1875 to Reverend James William Lane and Frances Adelaide Lane. Despite an unsettled childhood and minimal formal education, Lane displayed an early aptitude for the arts. His career as an art dealer began in London, where he first worked with Martin Colnaghi and subsequently with E. Trevelyan Turner. By the late 1890s, Lane had established his own gallery, rapidly emerging as one of London’s foremost art dealers. His interests and expertise were notably diverse; although he specialized in Old Masters, he also collected works by Impressionist and other contemporary artists. Around the turn of the century, Lane cultivated connections with Irish artists and patrons, which spurred his commitment to promoting Irish art. In 1904, he organized an Irish art exhibition in London and began envisioning a modern art gallery for Dublin. This ambition culminated in the founding of the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin in 1908. He was knighted in 1909 and continued to support art institutions in Dublin, Belfast, and South Africa alongside his London gallery. In 1912, Lane gifted a collection of paintings to Dublin. However, disputes regarding a permanent gallery location led him to retract some of these works. Lane’s life was cut short in 1915 when he perished aboard the Lusitania, which was torpedoed on a trans-Atlantic voyage. His unwitnessed codicil requested that his paintings remain in Dublin, sparking decades of legal contention. A 1959 agreement ultimately allowed the collection to alternate between London and Dublin. In recognition of Lane’s legacy, the Dublin gallery was later renamed the Hugh Lane Gallery. Lane formed a close friendship with artist Sarah Cecilia Harrison, who was twelve years his senior. Harrison painted at least two portraits of Lane — one of which is now held by the National Gallery of Ireland, and another being the present work. In his 2000 biography of Lane, Robert O’Byrne noted that Harrison’s admiration for Lane bordered on the unhealthy, particularly after his death when she claimed improbably that they had been engaged.