John Butler Yeats, RHA (1839-1922) "Portrait of a Woman ,"...

Hammer

€2,700

John Butler Yeats, RHA (1839-1922)

"Portrait of a Woman ," O.O.C., 76 h x 61 w cms  (30” x 24”)(1)

In addition to portraits of political and cultural leaders such as John O’Leary, Douglas Hyde, Ruth Lane and George Moore, John Butler Yeats often sketched and painted portraits of family members and relatives. The sitter in this portrait has not been identified, but may be a member of the Pollexfen or Cottenham families. Painted with Yeats’s characteristic finesse and sensitivity, the portrait depicts a woman in early middle age, dressed in a fur coat or stole, wearing a white blouse and jewelled pendant necklace. The Pollexfens were important in Yeats’s life, with much of his early education taking place while he lived with them in Sligo.  In 1857, he was a student at Trinity College Dublin and during a visit to Sligo in 1862, aged twenty-three, he and his cousin Susan Pollexfen became engaged. The following year the couple married. Yeats then studied law in Dublin, but became dissatisfied and elected to move with his wife and young children to London, and take up a career as an artist. He enrolled first in Heatherley’s School of Art, afterwards attending the Slade.

Initially the family spent summers in Sligo together, but by the early 1870’s, John Butler was staying on alone in London while his wife and children went to Ireland. The following years of moving between Ireland and London were not easy: after suffering a stroke in 1887, Susan became an invalid. She died in 1900 and Yeats formed a friendship with Rosa Butt, daughter of the Irish politician Isaac Butt. The American lawyer John Quinn then helped Yeats to settle with his daughters Susan (Lily) and Elizabeth (Lolly) in Dublin, and in 1901 he had a joint exhibition with Nathaniel Hone. The following year, Hugh Lane commissioned Yeats to paint portraits of people influential in the Irish literary revival: these were to form the nucleus of a new museum of modern art in Dublin. After accompanying Lily to New York in 1908, Yeats decided to settle in Manhattan, where he lived and worked until his death in 1922.

Dr. Peter Murray, 2022