Sir John Lavery, R.A., R.S.A., R.H.A. 1856-1941

Bradford, Corporation Gallery, 1909, details untraced;
Possibly, Vienna, Gallery Arnot, 1910, as A Lady in Sables: Mrs Buckley;
Possibly, Venice, Biennale, 1910, as The Lady with the Sables 1908;
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, 1912, details untraced.

Despite the fact that he remained unrecognised by the Royal Academy, Lavery’s portrait practice in London prospered during the Edwardian years. Unlike Sargent, who dramatically reduced his appointments as a result of over-work in 1907, the painter managed his professional life with secretarial help and extended annual sojourns in Tangier. His resignation from the office of Vice-President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in 1908 gave more concentrated periods of time for the studio in Cromwell Place, and during these years he became the most celebrated society portraitist in London. A Lady with Sables comes from this rich period of international recognition. Although the sitter’s identity remains uncertain, it is clear that the painter responded sympathetically to her vivacity and sense of style. The comparison with Lady Evelyn Farquhar (lot 44) is apposite in that although little more than a year separates the two canvases, the present picture reveals important changes in fashion. Gone are the flamboyant millinery and diaphanous skirts of the earlier work. Turbans, boaters, sables and crisp tailoring have temporarily returned. It was not for Lavery to approve these changes, so much as to interpret their effects and observe that the implicit languor of Lady Evelyn, had given way to the assertive stance of the present sitter.  

Gossip columnists sought his opinions on ladies’ couture and he was interviewed for art journals, books on portraiture and a monograph on his work around this time. These paid attention to the observer of contemporary society for whom the tilt of a hat or the fashion for sables was a vital indication of social acceptability. This essence of the moment was not easily achieved. The Hon. John Collier, researching his book on Portrait Painting in 1905 contacted one of Lavery’s sitters in order to gain some appreciation of the process. She told him that ‘two days were spent in the studio trying to take an unaffected pose’,

‘Mr Lavery did sketch after sketch of me, till he found what he wanted … Then discarding the sketches he takes a canvas the size he requires, and within two hours he has the entire canvas covered – the texture of the frock, and the drawing of the features and the pose of the figure almost complete …’

Then followed a difficult period of at least two weeks when the picture was scraped down and reworked daily, until ‘he has reached his limit’ (John Collier, The Art of Portrait Painting, Cassell & Co Ltd 1905, pp. 75-6). There were inevitable casualties in this process. Sometimes a pose was not conducive, a dress was too flamboyant or the canvas turned out to be the wrong dimensions. Mrs Trevor (fig. 1, 1908, Ulster Museum, Belfast), later reworked as Lady Juliet Duff, for instance, reveals the first attempt at the pose adopted in the present work, but in an upright format.

More space around the figure in A Lady with Sables suggests a more comfortable pose and more harmonious effect. Both pictures form part of a long sequence of ‘ladies in black’ for which, by 1908, Lavery was renowned. In the present case, the fur that has fallen from her shoulders and the blue-grey trimmings of her hat, enhance what the painter regarded as one of his most successful arrangements.        

Kenneth McConkey