Lot 51 Jack Butler Yeats

Jack B. Yeats RHA, 1871-1957 FRESH HORSES (c.1914) Oil on board, 14'' x 9'' (35.5 x 23cm), signed Exhibited: 1914 London (25); 1917 London Allied Artists; 1918 Dublin (13); 1965 London (1) Provenance: Sold by the artist to L. Smith, 1946, later R MacGonigal, Dublin. Later sold by Victor Waddinon, London, 1965. Also Peter O'Toole, London and Waddington Galleries, London. Literature: 'Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonneof the Oil Paintings' by Hilary Pyle, No 91, page 78, Vol I, where she writes: 'An ostler holding the heads of two skittish horses in the darkness. His scarf and the harness catch the light. This oil was developed from a sketch in one of Yeat's Belmullet notebooks (sketchbook 101; Sligo Museum), which has the inscription ' Changing horses on the way to Belmullet'. Yeats and Synge travelled by mail car- a long car- to Belmullet in July 1905. The painting may be earlier than 1914, with its firmly worked single figure and night lighting being closer to compositions of 1911- 12 (27, 39). The trip with Synge imprinted itself firmly on Yeat's memory, and he recalled incidents from it at intervals'- Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonneof the Oil Paintings by Hilary Pyle, No 91, page 78, Vol I.