Sir William Orpen, R.W.S., N.E.A.C., R.A., R.H.A.

Laurence Bradbury Esq. by 1923;
Agnew & Sons, London, where purchased by the father of the present owner in 1965

London, Agnew & Sons, June 1965, no.76

Anon, Figure Painting in Watercolours by Contemporary British Artists, 1923, (The Studio, ‘Special Number’), illus.;
‘Art Publications’, The Scotsman, 11 June 1923, p.2;
J.B. Manson, ‘Some Drawings by Sir William Orpen’, The Studio, vol. 86, October 1923, opp. p.183, illus. as frontispiece       

The sheet has been laid down. Some slight discolouration to the edges of the sheet, otherwise the work appears in very good overall condition. Held under glass in a simple gilt wood frame with a linen mount.
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In December 1914, as it became clear that prophecies of a swift end to the war in Europe would not be realized, William Orpen exhibited his large allegorical work The Western Wedding, (fig. 1), at the New English Art Club. It was the second in his ‘Irish trilogy’.¹

Unflattering comparisons were made with Piero della Francesca’s Nativity and this ‘curious scene’ of an open air West of Ireland wedding was considered indecipherable.² ‘To judge by appearances’ said one critic,

… the priest and the fiddler standing on the opposite sides of a gigantic crucifix are discoursing simultaneously while guests are scattered promiscuously with no great interest in the ceremony.³

Orpen’s message was not a simple one, mixing western peasant rusticity and catholic piety with memories of the plays of Synge in the tangle of Irish cultural revival. For many the picture was simply disjointed and its significance is made more difficult to unravel because it perished in a fire while in storage. A fully worked up compositional study, given to Thomas Bodkin and passed to his daughter, is also lost. What remains is a series of drawings that relate to the figure groups – the central one comprising the barefoot fiddler with his vagabond family. While other spectators at this strange event seem oddly disengaged, the musician, probably modelled by Sean Keating, faces the priest as he confers his blessing, perhaps waiting for a signal to continue playing.  

Whatever we may think of the ‘Wedding’ ensemble, the parts are supremely eloquent. Orpen’s draughtsmanship was hailed by contemporaries, one describing the line in works like the present drawing, as ‘clear, firm and vivid’. As in his earlier Caravaggesque crayon studies (see lot 5), so confident was his handling of the medium that a single contour, placed with the precision of silverpoint, was sufficient to convey all he needed to say about space and form. CH Collins Baker accounted for this change of emphasis as a move towards modernism – ‘Perhaps the recent exhibition of the so-called Post-Impressionists may have suggested something to him’, he mused.⁴ Comparisons were invoked by others with great draughtsmen of the past – Ingres and Leonardo. So prized were the drawings of this period that the Chenil Gallery produced an expensive portfolio of facsimilies accompanied by a booklet of enthusiastic encomia. By the twenties, in a more uncertain world, James Bolivar Manson in his brief critical survey of Orpen’s drawings declared that The Fiddler,

… has charm; the subject is delightful; the naïve expression on the kneeling boy’s face is very sweet; but it is not impulsive; it is a careful drawing and a careful draughtsman (I mean a consciously careful one) is a little like a painstaking comedian.⁵

The pedantic Manson, a minor Impressionist painter, now working as a Tate Gallery curator, may well have been aware of Orpen’s legendary humour. What he evidently did not appreciate was the spontaneity and schooled intuition that arose from in-depth study and long experience. Drawing, according to PG Konody was a ‘veritable passion’.⁶ Orpen drew instinctively, incessantly and without licence. As his letters attest, he thought, first and foremost, visually. And when we look at the glorious Fiddler, little else matters.  

Kenneth McConkey

[1]  Orpen’s so-called ‘Irish Trilogy’ consisted of Sowing New Seed …, 1913 (Mildura Art Centre, Australia) and Nude Pattern, The Holy Well, 1916 (National Gallery of Ireland), in addition to The Western Wedding.

[2]  C.H. Collins Baker, ‘Ways of Seeing Things’, The Saturday Review, 12 December 1914, p.603.

[3]  ‘Our Private Correspondence’, The Scotsman, 2 December 1914, p.7.

[4]  C.H. Collins Baker, ‘The Paintings of William Orpen ARA, RHA’, The Studio, vol LII, 1911, p.260.

[5] J.B. Manson, ‘Some Drawings by Sir William Orpen’, The Studio, vol LXXXVI, 1923, p.189.

[6] P.G. Konody, ‘The Sketch Books of Sir William Orpen’, The Studio, vol CIV, 1932, p.309.