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Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) - SAINT JARLETH, c.1903

Currency:EUR Category:Art / General - Paintings Start Price:0.00 EUR Estimated At:5,000.00 - 7,000.00 EUR
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) - SAINT JARLETH, c.1903

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Auction Date:2012 Oct 01 @ 18:00 (UTC+1)
Location:Clyde Hall, Royal Dublin Society (RDS), Ballsbridge, Dublin, Dublin, ., Ireland
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) - SAINT JARLETH, c.1903

gouache on card
signed in monogram lower right; with title inscribed in pencil on reverse; with gilt plaque affixed lower centre detailing title and artist's name
33 by 20in., 84 by 51cm.
Miss Lily Yeats; Miss Hyland; Purchased by Thomas MacGreevy c.1958; The Collection of James White (former Director of the National Gallery of Ireland); Private collection; de Vere's, Spring 2012, lot 136





This gouache was intended as a design for an embroidered sodality banner for Loughrea Cathedral, Co. Galway. It was executed in 1903 as part of a commission awarded to the fledgling Dún Emer Guild, which was founded in 1902 by Evelyn Gleeson. Her two principal partners in the venture were Jack Yeats' sisters, Susan and Elizabeth (or Lily and Lolly as they were known to family and friends). When the Guild received this prestigious commission, they invited Jack and his wife Mary (known as Cottie) to supply designs for the banners. Jack designed the Sacred Heart banner and the banners for all the male saints bar two (these were designed by George Russell "Æ"), whilst Cottie supplied designs for nearly all of the female saints. In all, twenty-nine banners were completed, with a further four designs being executed but ultimately not used.
In the present work Yeats depicts St. Jarleth, regarded as the founder and principle patron of the Archdiocese of Tuam. Jarleth was a member of the well-known Conmaicne family, influential in Galway during that period. He was ordained a priest and founded the monastery of Cloonfush, outside Tuam. He later presided over that monastery as abbot-bishop and opened what became a celebrated school alongside.

In common with other Loughrea designs, the figure is drawn in heavy black outline. At the time of the commission, The Irish Homestead described the banners as displaying "freshness and quaint naturalness", combined with "sympathy and native feeling" and hailed them as the start "of a new epoch in art work of this kind, wherein originality of design shall replace vulgarity and simple beauty replace tawdriness" (13 February 1904, p. 134).