Lot 63
  • 63

SIR JOHN LAVERY, R.A., R.H.A., R.S.A. | Mrs. Frank Joseph Fahey

Estimate
30,000 - 50,000 GBP
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Description

  • Sir John Lavery, R.A., R.H.A., R.S.A.
  • Mrs. Frank Joseph Fahey
  • signed l.l.: J. Lavery; also titled, signed, inscribed BOSTON and dated 1926 on the reverse
  • oil on canvas
  • 102.5 by 77cm., 40¼ by 30¼in.

Provenance

Sotheby's, London, 16 May 2002, lot 152

Literature

Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery, A Painter and his World, 2010 (Atelier Books), p.239 (note 107)

Condition

Original canvas. There is some craquelure to the lady's chest and fur shawl, and another small area near the lower right corner - all of which appears stable. Overall the work appears in good condition. UV light reveals an opaque varnish. There appears to be areas of infilling corresponding to the craquelure as mentioned above and also to her arms. Possibly some further retouchings in the background upper right and to her face. All of which have been well executed. Held in a gilt plaster frame, ready to hang.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

In 1925, the wealthy art dealer, Joseph Duveen, presented Lavery with an important opportunity. He would transport the contents of the painter’s current exhibition of ‘portrait interiors’, along with other pictures to New York for a solo exhibition at his gallery on Fifth Avenue.1 The artist and his American wife, Hazel, would attend the opening in November and by the time of his arrival, a number of portrait commissions would be arranged with prominent Duveen clients. As the plan developed, an exhibition tour was arranged that included Boston, Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and such was the volume of projects offered to the painter, that when he finally returned to London in March 1926, a second visit was arranged for later that year. It was in Boston, while his exhibition was on view at the Robert C. Vose Galleries, over the New Year, that the present portrait of Frank Joseph Fahey’s wife was painted. Mrs Fahey (née Florence Alice Meyer of Lowell, Massachusetts), married her husband in 1917. At that point he was forty-three and had become Vice-President and Treasurer of the Gillette Safety Razor Company, based in Boston, and America was entering the Great War. Having risen through the ranks in the cotton trade, Fahey joined Gillette in 1908 and oversaw its massive expansion, securing contracts with the US Army, and increasing production. Soldiers returning from the Western Front were all convinced of the efficacy of the ‘safety razor’ and with a series of innovative promotional and sponsorship campaigns, the death-knell for the old ‘open’ or ‘cut-throat’ razor was tolled. Such was Fahey’s prominence as a business leader at the time of his wife’s portrait that he sat on the board of the First National Bank of Boston and was a director of the Old Colony Trust.2

For Fahey, Lavery’s portrait was thus an important way to underwrite his wife’s social distinction in a Boston dominated by the ‘Boston Brahmins’ of the ‘Watch and Ward Society’. Being of Irish and German descent, the Faheys were outside this select group and witnessed the current challenges to its authority. Clearly, a painter of Lavery’s international stature would confirm that they had arrived. In the present instance, format and handling aligns the picture with other contemporary portraits. In Boston for instance, he also produced the smaller portraits of Mrs JF Maguire, Julia Maguire, Harriet Taft Hayward and Mary Elizabeth Hayward, all of which are half-lengths. As in these cases, Florence Alice Fahey addresses the viewer directly, and without the seductive swagger of a Sargent. Herein lies both the picture’s appeal, and indeed, its essential modernity.

Professor Kenneth McConkey

1 K. McConkey, op. cit., 2010, pp.169-174.

John H. Ingham, Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders, vol. 1, A-G, 1983 (Greenwood Press), pp.357-9.