Artist: Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) Title: Rune of Hospitality (c.1912) Signature: signed with monogram lower right Medium: ink drawing on paper Size: 25 x 12.30cm (9.8 x 4.8in) Framed Size: 42 x 28cm (16.5 x 11in) Provenance: Theo Waddington's Irish Art Project (label verso); Private Collection a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} This ink drawing by Jack Yeats refers to a tradition of hospitality that was an enduring part of life in the Irish countryside over many generations. In Ireland, as in Scotland, it was considered unacceptable for a house door to be locked against a stranger or traveller. In Yeats's drawing, a travel... Read more Jack Butler Yeats Lot 7 - 'Rune of Hospitality (c.1912)' Estimate: €2,500 - €3,500 This ink drawing by Jack Yeats refers to a tradition of hospitality that was an enduring part of life in the Irish countryside over many generations. In Ireland, as in Scotland, it was considered unacceptable for a house door to be locked against a stranger or traveller. In Yeats's drawing, a traveller walks along a country road, with cottages, bare-branched trees and dark mountains in the background. Although dressed in plain robes and holding a tall staff, the halo above the strangers' head marks him out as representing 'Christ in the Stranger's Guise'. The traditional verse Christ in the Stranger's Guise is described by Yeats as a 'rune', or a mystical poem. This particular rune is associated with the early Irish Christian community on the island of Iona, off the Scottish coast, where a monastery was founded by St. Columba in the 6th century AD. In the late nineteenth century the rune was translated from the Gaelic by the Revd. Kenneth McLeod (1871-1955), and, set to music, it became a favourite Christmas carol. The concept was also given visual expression by William Holman Hunt in his painting The Light of the World. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, exhibitions of Yeats's paintings were held regularly London and Dublin, with the American lawyer John Quinn purchasing his work from an exhibition in Dublin in 1902: two years later, Quinn organized an exhibition for Yeats in New York. Between 1908 and 1915, Yeats was mainly occupied with editing and providing texts and illustrations for the Cuala Press monthly publication A Broadside. This followed his earlier work in 1903 on A Broadsheet, which ran for just twenty-four numbers. He sometimes contributed poems under the pen name Mac Gowan, and used other pseudonyms also, for his work as cartoonist and illustrator. The prints were often hand-coloured by Jack's sibling, Lollie Yeats, who, along with her sister Lily, founded and ran the Cuala Press. This original ink drawing was made by Yeats in order to be translated into a print and published in A Broadside. Peter Murray, January 2022
Artist: Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) Title: Rune of Hospitality (c.1912) Signature: signed with monogram lower right Medium: ink drawing on paper Size: 25 x 12.30cm (9.8 x 4.8in) Framed Size: 42 x 28cm (16.5 x 11in) Provenance: Theo Waddington's Irish Art Project (label verso); Private Collection a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} This ink drawing by Jack Yeats refers to a tradition of hospitality that was an enduring part of life in the Irish countryside over many generations. In Ireland, as in Scotland, it was considered unacceptable for a house door to be locked against a stranger or traveller. In Yeats's drawing, a travel... Read more Jack Butler Yeats Lot 7 - 'Rune of Hospitality (c.1912)' Estimate: €2,500 - €3,500 This ink drawing by Jack Yeats refers to a tradition of hospitality that was an enduring part of life in the Irish countryside over many generations. In Ireland, as in Scotland, it was considered unacceptable for a house door to be locked against a stranger or traveller. In Yeats's drawing, a traveller walks along a country road, with cottages, bare-branched trees and dark mountains in the background. Although dressed in plain robes and holding a tall staff, the halo above the strangers' head marks him out as representing 'Christ in the Stranger's Guise'. The traditional verse Christ in the Stranger's Guise is described by Yeats as a 'rune', or a mystical poem. This particular rune is associated with the early Irish Christian community on the island of Iona, off the Scottish coast, where a monastery was founded by St. Columba in the 6th century AD. In the late nineteenth century the rune was translated from the Gaelic by the Revd. Kenneth McLeod (1871-1955), and, set to music, it became a favourite Christmas carol. The concept was also given visual expression by William Holman Hunt in his painting The Light of the World. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, exhibitions of Yeats's paintings were held regularly London and Dublin, with the American lawyer John Quinn purchasing his work from an exhibition in Dublin in 1902: two years later, Quinn organized an exhibition for Yeats in New York. Between 1908 and 1915, Yeats was mainly occupied with editing and providing texts and illustrations for the Cuala Press monthly publication A Broadside. This followed his earlier work in 1903 on A Broadsheet, which ran for just twenty-four numbers. He sometimes contributed poems under the pen name Mac Gowan, and used other pseudonyms also, for his work as cartoonist and illustrator. The prints were often hand-coloured by Jack's sibling, Lollie Yeats, who, along with her sister Lily, founded and ran the Cuala Press. This original ink drawing was made by Yeats in order to be translated into a print and published in A Broadside. Peter Murray, January 2022
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
