Description
Attributed to John Butler Yeats RHA (1839-1922) CONSTANCE GORE-BOOTH (1868-1927), LATER COUNTESS MARKIEVICZ inscribed 'Con Gore Booth' upper left, and '2pm' lower right pencil on paper 60 by 41cm., 23.5 by 16.2 5in. This portrait drawing of a young woman is a preparatory study for a now untraced 'finished' portrait, most probably in pencil (graphite). The sitter is Constance Gore-Booth, daughter of Sir Henry Gore-Booth of Lissadell House, Co. Sligo, and going by her possible age in the drawing, the sketch was executed in the early 1890s when the sitter was in her early twenties. W. B. Yeats had befriended Con Gore-Booth in 1892 and visited Sligo and Lissadell on a number of occasions in the early 1890s. It is not inconceivable that his father, the artist John Butler Yeats, joined him on one of these visits to the great house and was invited to sketch portraits of the Gore-Booth daughters. At the same time, this drawing could just as easily have been done in London as Con Gore-Booth studied at the Slade School of Art from 1893-4 and John Butler Yeats lived in London from 1886 to 1902. Various recorded meetings between Con Gore-Booth and W. B. Yeats are known for these years. On the basis of my experience as the curator of an exhibition on John Butler Yeats, it is my view that the drawing is by him.1 In the 1920s, W. B. Yeats would memorably recall the Gore-Booth daughters (Con and Eva) as: Two girls in silk kimonos, both Beautiful, one a gazelle 2 A number of photographs of Con Gore-Booth in the 1890s exist and there are definite similarities between known photos of her and this image. The most telling facial similarities are the slightly upturned nose, a defined chin and wide eyes. 3 The fact that the drawing carries an inscription in the artist's hand confirms the identification. A later pencil sketch by J. B. Yeats of Countess Markievicz (formerly in the collection of the late Michael B. Yeats and sold through these rooms, 5 April 2008, lot 300) has been rather loosely dated to c.1895 and shows the sitter wearing glasses and a hat.4 Going by her features, this person looks older than a woman in her late twenties and must be dated to the early years of the twentieth century, when the newly married Countess was in her thirties. The attribution to J. B. Yeats is based on the subtlety and verve with which he has conveyed the facial aspects of his sitter while also conveying an independence of personality. By lifting the head and thus allowing the sitter to look down towards us, the artist conveys spirit and determination, aspects of character that come across in equal measure in the smaller half length drawing on the same sheet. If this drawing dates from the first half of the 1890s (according to the age of the sitter), the extensive use of hatching around the head of the sitter is fully in keeping with the portrait style of J. B. Yeats in these years. A couple of pencil drawings of Susan Mitchell and her sister Jenny Mitchell (collection of Gráinne Yeats) which date from the late 1890s and were done in Blenheim Road, west London at the Yeats home, offer interesting comparisons in terms of dark hatching used to contrast with the brightness of the face. Equally, a highly accomplished drawing of a young girl, 'Cuckoo' York Powell (c.1895-99, again, collection of Gráinne Yeats) shows the attention the artist paid to close observation of the face and a more hurried concern with the shoulders and dress. This drawing of Constance Gore-Booth is similar, with a comparable fascination with great dark spheres for the eyes. Another stylistic technique that Yeats exhibits in both the Gore-Booth and York Powell drawings is his use of the sheet of paper for trying out a series of poses or drafts. In the case of the Gore-Booth sketch, one can only guess that the inscription '2 pm' refers to his capturing a certain pose one afternoon with the expectation that further drawings will ensue until the artist is satisfied. The size of this sheet of paper is large in comparison with most other known drawings by J. B. Yeats. This is perhaps due to its unfinished aspect and the fact that so many of his drawings have in time become exhibitable items. Unlike many other drawings of well known Irish personalities of the period, this sketch of Constance Gore-Booth is a private sketch and shows the artist working out a solution to a portrait problem. Throughout the 1890s, Yeats made extensive use of the black lead pencil and achieved a greater expressiveness through his increased control of it. Some years later, when he held his first exhibition in 1901, the artist's friend Frederick York Powell wrote that "he has incontestably made the soft greys and dark sheen of the black lead the vehicle of some of his most intimate and successful interpretation of living nature". This drawing was at Lissadell for over one hundred years, unattributed and possibly kept with various student drawings by Constance Gore-Booth. When it resurfaced, it was thought that this drawing was a self-portrait. This is not the case. Con Gore-Booth did train as an artist in London and Paris but her work is never more than that of an amateur. Her portrait of her sister, Eva (Christie's, Lissadell Sale, 2003, lot 118) is a very slight work, showing little understanding of life drawing and no subtlety in conveying character. By contrast, in the 1890s, John Butler Yeats was proving himself to be a formidable portraitist. His direct application of graphite to paper shows a concern with subtle gradations of tone. His art is highly naturalistic as opposed to realist. Fintan Cullen Professor of Art History University of Nottingham 1 Fintan Cullen, The Drawings of John Butler Yeats (1839-1922), Albany Institute of History and Art, 1987. 2 W. B. Yeats, 'In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz' from The Winding Stair and Other Poems, 1933. 3 R. F. Foster, W. B. Yeats. A Life: I, The Apprentice Mage, Oxford University Press, 1997, plate 14. 4 William M. Murphy, Prodigal Father. The Life of John Butler Yeats (1839-1922), Cornell University Press, 1978, p. 451. See also Hilary Pyle, Yeats: Portrait of an Artistic Family, National Gallery of Ireland and Merrell Holberton, 1997. Provenance: Lissadell House, Co. Sligo; Clearance sale, Mealy's, Dublin, 3 December 2002, lot 315; Mealy's, December 2004, lot 1; 'Independence Sale', Adam's and Mealy's, Dublin, April 2007, lot 399; Private collection, Dublin
