Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 12th November 2018

24 19 Sir John Lavery RA RHA RSA (1856-1941) Glendalough, Ireland (1924) signed ‘J Lavery’ lower right, titled and dated on reverse oil on canvas board 51 x 61cm (20 x 24in) Provenance: James Adam & Bonhams, 3rd December 2002, Lot 77; Private Collection Exhibited: Boston: Robert C Vose Galleries, Portraits and Landscapes of Sir John Lavery RA, December 1925- January 1926, no 30 as Glendaloch (sic), Ireland; Harrisburg: Art Association, Paintings by Sir John Lavery RA, February-March 1926, no 33, as Glendaloch; Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute, Portraits, Interiors and Landscapes by Sir John Lavery, March-April 1926, no 1l, as Glendaloch (sic), Ireland Literature: Kenneth McConkey. John Lavery, A Painter and his World, 2010 (Atelier Books), p. 165 €60,000-€80,000 (£53,571-£71,428) In July 1924, the Laverys arrived at Mount Stewart, the home of Lord Londonderry on the Ards Peninsula. The oc- casion was the painter’s receipt of an honorary doctorate in Civil Law from Queen’s University in Belfast, the city of his birth, and where Londonderry was university Vice-Chancellor. After a brief sojourn the couple repaired to the Vice-Regal Lodge in Dublin at the beginning of August, when, on the invitation of WB Yeats, they attended Aonach Tailteann , popularly referred to as the Irish Olympic Games, staged at Croke Park. This was followed at the end of the month by a long car journey to Killarney, a tour on which Lavery intended to paint a suite of southern landscapes with the idea of staging an ‘Irish’ exhibition. 1 Their first stop was at Glendalough in county Wicklow, where the present landscape was painted in the stillness of a late summer day. Now in his mid-sixties, Lavery was well-used to stopping the car at the roadside and completing an oil sketch of the scene before him, and in this instance, although his ultimate destination was the Great Southern Hotel at ParknaSilla, there was no hurry or sense of impatience. The calm waters reflecting the majestic sweep of hills are only broken by a single rower away in the distance. It is a picture of great serenity, painted on one of the last really good days they had on the trip. Thereafter they drove down to Tramore in Waterford, before moving on to Clonmel in Tipperary, and from there to the Lakes of Killarney to be greeted by blustery showers. 2 Nevertheless, at each stopping point paintings were pro- duced – the blacksmiths at Tramore, a wandering penny-whistler who became, Phil, the Fluter , a group of roadside stonebreakers and a white-bearded peasant on his donkey, tramping The Kingdom of Kerry – over a dozen in all, and the nucleus of a show. 3 Sadly however, this solo display of Irish pictures, which had been in gestation since before the Great War, was displaced the following year by another project - a much-lauded exhibition of ‘portrait interiors’ which Joseph Duveen took to his New York galleries. The immediate success of this venture led instantly to a tour in which additional works were added for Boston and other venues. The best half-dozen of the Irish pictures, Glendal- ough among them, were included in the display, much to the delight of the expatriate communities. 4 Glendalough, with its confluence – ‘the meeting of the waters’ – and ancient ecclesiastical ruins had of course been a favourite scene for topographical watercolourists for a century or more, and although he avoids their clichés , Lavery was undoubtedly drawn to the site because it typified Ireland’s romantic beauty. A similar impetus had led him to the Highlands of Scotland before the war, when he painted the shores of Loch Katrine. The present Irish tour was however, a more extended recapitulation of an earlier visit to the south west in 1913 when he was invited to stay at Killarney House to paint the portrait of Lady Dorothy Browne, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Kenmare. There, the rugged beauty of the lakes and mountains had led him directly to a monumental triptych, The Madonna of the Lakes , 1916, for St Patrick’s Church in Belfast. That work had coincided with the Easter Rising and Ireland, now free, demanded a fresh eye. The old places must be treated anew and, as never before, permitted to sing their own exquisite song. Glendalough was the first. Professor Kenneth McConkey , October 2018 1- McConkey, 2010, pp. 166-174. 2 - McConkey, 2010, pp. 164-5. 3 - While a number of these remained in the artist’s possession at the time of his death, Glendalough does not appear in probate valuations. We must assume that it was sold after the American tour. All of the others are currently in private collections. 4 - Several of these pictures, excluding the present example, were shown at an exhibition of Irish art at the Fine Art Society in May 1927.