John Butler Yeats

Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, Paintings and Drawings by John Butler Yeats, 1972, no.90

William M. Murphy, Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats, Cornelll University Press, Ithaca and London, 1978, pp.84, 96;
Bruce Arnold, Jack Yeats, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1998, p.15

Original canvas, undulating slightly. The surface is slightly dirty. There is a craquelure pattern around the centre of the canvas and a smaller area to the sitter's hat. Also an old horizontal repaired tear approximately 4cm. long just to the right of her neck, with corresponding patch to the reverse. Under ultraviolet light, there appears to be a small area of retouching in the lower left corner. Held in a gilt wood frame.
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The present portrait was John Butler Yeats's first big commission, received in 1872 from an unknown benefactor to paint members of the Herbert family at Muckross House, Killarney (extant today). The family had been there for successive generations and the house had been completely rebuilt in 1843 and the gardens extensively worked for Queen Victoria's visit in 1861. JBY arrived in February 1873 but scarcely had time to begin his commission when news of sudden the death of his son Robert 'Bobbie' Butler Yeats reached him. The painting was postponed and it was not until October that John returned to finish the assignment. Mrs Herbert, an attractive young woman, is painted in a richly coloured and patterned gown with her terrier upon her lap. 

Shortly after completing the painting, Mrs Herbert absconded with a lover never to return to the house. Consequently, the husband refused to take the portrait and it ended up in the room of JBY's friend Edward Dowden at Trinity College. Upon his death, the picture was returned to the Yeats family where it since remained. Family tradition has it that the lover who whisked Mrs Herbert away was the footman.