Sir John Lavery, R.A., R.S.A., R.H.A.

With Sir William Young Bt, c. 1914
The Artist, and thence by descent to the present owner

Paris, Exposition Internationale, 1900;
London, Grosvenor Gallery, Retrospective Exhibition of the Works of John Lavery, 1914, no. 112.

ACR Carter, 'John Lavery RSA', The Art Journal, 1904, p. 11, illustrated;
Walter Shaw Sparrow, John Lavery and his Work, n.d. [1912], Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., pp. 179,181.

Original canvas.There are some minor fine lines of surface craquelure scattered to her hair and face and some minor paint shrinkage below her chin otherwise in good overall condition. Under ultraviolet light, there is a small spot of retouching by the bottom right edge and a minor line of retouching approx. 2in long in the bottom right corner. Held in a plaster gilt frame.
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The present work has been cut down from one of Lavery's most celebrated full-length portraits for which he won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition Internationale of 1900.

Painted at the height of Lavery's friendship with Whistler, it is possible that the younger painter was emulating works such as The Yellow Buskin: Lady Archibald Campbell, 1883 (Art Institute of Chicago), or Rose et Or: La Tulipe, c. 1894 (Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow) in which the sitter turns away from the spectator. ACR Carter waxed lyrical on Lady Young. Comparing it to a portrait of Mary Auras, he declared,
Here is the capture of imperious grace panoplied in all the apparat (sic) and armament of feminine adornment – and true to its period, whatever one may say. (Art Journal, 1904, p. 11) 

Lady Young was the wife of Sir William Young, (1864-1921) 4^th Baronet Young of North Dean. It is possible that the portrait was commissioned at the time of his marriage to Lady Young. Considered important in Lavery's oeuvre, the picture was requested for his large retrospective exhibition in London in 1914. The circumstances in which it was subsequently reduced and returned to painter's studio remain unknown.

Kenneth McConkey