John Butler Yeats

Estimate

2,000 - 3,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

John Butler Yeats
W. B. Yeats as a Young Man
dated l.r.: (in Lily Yeats' hand): June 1889
wash with white highlights over pencil
one: 10 by 20cm., 4 by 7¾in.; the other: 15 by 23cm., 6 by 9in.

together with another example by John Butler Yeats

Exhibited

New York, Albany Institute of History & Art, The Drawings of John Butler Yeats, 11 April - 31 May 1987, no.13, illustrated p.59 and frontispiece

Literature

William M. Murphy, The Yeats Family and the Pollexfens of Sligo, Dublin, Dolmen Press, 1971, illustrated no.10

Catalogue Note

Both sketches show the young William Butler Yeats when he carried a beard. Katherine Tynan described the poet at this time: 'in looks...as picturesque as one could desire - hair, beard and beautiful eyes of a southern darkness, with a face of a fine oval, and a clear dusky colour...Nature has written the poet upon his face' (quoted in D. J. Gordon, W. B. Yeats: Images of a Poet, Manchester, 1970, p.8).