YEATS, JACK B. | Illustrated autograph letter signed, to his cousin Edwin, [c.1885]

YEATS, JACK

Autograph letter signed, to his cousin Edwin Butler Yeats

sending Christmas greetings and news of the festivities in Sligo ("...There was a dance in one of the houses down the village last night they danced till about 6 am...), illustrated with a series of narrative drawings entitled "The Tale of the 16th century" seemingly about a young man who falls off his horse after a visit to an inn and blames his injuries on a fight with robbers, with a final additional sketch a self-portrait showing the artist "late" chasing after the postman, 5 pages, 8vo, [Sligo, 1880s]

A FINE AND HIGH-SPIRITED ILLUSTRATED LETTER BY THE YOUNG JACK YEATS. Hilary Pyle notes the rarity of Jack Yeats's juvenilia, even though he was "an artist who is said to have been drawing since he left the cradle" (Jack Yeats, 1970, p. 22). Bruce Arnold reproduces one childhood letter with a sketch of William Pollexfen (Jack Yeats, 1998, p. 22), and mentions another that is incorporated in a letter to the artist's sister Lily. He also notes two sets of drawings in a narrative sequence, one given to each sister: 'Beauty and the Beast' given to Lolly, (now in the National Library of Ireland); and 'The Pasha', which was given to Lily. Both narrative sequences were composed in 1885, when the artist was thirteen, and the current set of drawings is probably from around the same date.

PROVENANCE:

Sotheby's, London, 15 July 1999, lot 138