Sir William Orpen R.A., R.H.A.

The sitter and thence by descent to the present owner

Royal Academy, 1915, no.167;
Glasgow, Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, 1916, no.6;
Royal Academy, Winter Exhibition, 'Late Members', 1933, no.86;
Birmingham, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Works by Sir William Orpen, KBE, RA, (1878-1931), 1933, no.13

'The Royal Academy – 1', The Athenaeum, 8 May 1915, p.434;
P.G. Konody and S. Dark, Sir William Orpen, Artist and Man, 1932, p. 270

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd., 13 and 14 Mason's Yard, Duke Street, St James's, London SW1Y 6BU. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The artist's characteristically thick weave canvas is stretched onto the original wooden keyed stretcher. This is ensuring an even and secure structural support although it would be beneficial to tighten the stretcher keys. There are a line of earlier tacking holes, which have been filled, along the upper horizontal edge. It was a common practice of Orpen to extend the size of his canvases. Paint surface The paint surface has a slightly uneven varnish layer and should respond well to cleaning and revarnishing. There are very fine hairline craquelure lines which are entirely stable and not visually distracting. Inspection under ultraviolet light shows a small retouching on the sitter's face, hands and white cuffs and also on the left shoulder of his jacket. These retouchings are undoubtedly excessive and could be reduced if removed during the cleaning process and more carefully retouched. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition and should respond well to cleaning, restoration and revarnishing.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

By 1915 William Orpen was unquestionably the leading portrait painter of his generation in the Royal Academy. Older artists such as Sargent and Lavery remained serious rivals, but few of his younger contemporaries could match Orpen's executive skill. While the jeu d'esprit that characterized his theatrical self-portraits and allegorical works was toned down when he was acting on commission, in the latter carefully planned compositions he often incorporated subtle echoes of the masters, Titian, Velazquez, Holbein and Ingres. Looking back on his career in 1925, James Laver remarked that his portraits transcended mere competence - 'few ...are just immensely capable ...' and 'where the sitter stirred or interested him, they are much more' (Portraits in Oil and Vinegar, 1925, John Castle, p. 71). Two such instances are the pictures of Geoffrey Taylour, Marquis of Headfort and his wife, Rose (see previous lot) - paintings in which we may expect heraldry, insignia, robes and riches - all of the trappings of wealth and power.

But Orpen was no conventional face painter obsessed with the badges of rank. He lived in an age when aristocratic privilege was fast eroding, when the labour and women's movements gave new voice to downtrodden sectors of British society. These stirrings did not penetrate the Irish country estates, but they formed part of the volatile mixture that, combined with nationalism, would shake the Empire and sweep away British rule forever. Orpen and his sitters in 1915 were living under the fading rays of Mark Bence-Jones's Twilight of the Ascendancy (1987, Constable). 

Geoffrey Thomas Taylour, born on 12 June 1878, son of Thomas Taylour, the 3^rd Marquis of Headfort and his second wife Emily Thynne, succeeded to the title on the death of his father in 1894. He inherited Irish estates at Headfort, Kells, Co. Meath and Virginia Park, Co. Cavan, totalling about 22000 acres. An Anglican, and Freemason, he was destined for a distinguished military career in the 1^st Life Guards. However in the winter of 1900-1 he became enamoured with 'Rosie Boote', an unsuitable 'Gaiety Girl', one of a group famed for its ability to ensnare wealthy, aristocratic young men. He promptly resigned his commission declaring that "the usual stigma that rests on an officer who declines active service would not rest on him". They were married at Saltwood Register Office, near Folkestone on 11 April 1901. Excluded from London society, the couple retreated to the Taylours' ancestoral home, Headfort House, a classical house designed by George Semple, with the only surviving Robert Adam interior in Ireland.

The animosity of British society immediately contrasted with that of the couple's Irish tenants and they were quickly accepted. By 1903 when, living in Hampshire, they attended the Grosvenor House Ball, English society had also been won over. After four years the couple and their children returned to Headfort, where Taylour indulged his passion for arboriculture (Bence-Jones, p. 122). With the outbreak of war and the prospect of separation, the Marchioness commissioned a portrait of her husband from Orpen - a simple, informal, likeness by which he would be remembered. When it appeared at the Royal Academy in 1915, The Athenaeum found the present picture 'more intimate' than that of his wife - it had 'something of the unpretentious literalness of a good snapshot photograph'.

It is however, much more. Spotted tie, striped waistcoat and carefully groomed moustache indicate a country gentleman of some style – loyal, serious and with a strong sense of duty to hearth and home, he would serve in Gallipoli, Salonika and France, and be mentioned in dispatches. Some of this resolve is seen in the folded arms and steel-blue eyes with which he addresses the spectator. It was a pose Orpen had used before, back in 1904, when he painted Frederick Allen, Riding Master (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne).

On his return to Ireland after the war, Taylour served in the Irish Free State Senate from 1922 to 1928, and renewed his interest in arboriculture, creating an extensive 'pinetum' on two man-made islands in the River Blackwater on the Headfort Estate. A fellow of the Linnean Society, he was also president of the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland from 1920 until his sudden death in 1943 - he fell ill whilst on a shoot at Cahir Park, Co. Tipperary. His remains are buried on the smaller island at Headfort, with those of his beloved Rose and his two sons.

There is some significance in the fact that when the house was sold in 1949 to become a school, the Marchioness retained the present portraits, passing them on her death in 1958, within the family. Unlike other chattels, they embodied a lifelong love-match. Orpen's challenge, to break with inherited conventions had been fulfilled. Taylour may be posed and ornately framed under a gilt coronet, but he was, as the painter shows us, a man for the modern world.

The Orpen Research Project would like to thank Michael D.C. Bolton for his assistance.