Lot 594: Jerome Connor (1874-1943) Bust of Eamon De Valera,

Jerome Connor (1874-1943) Bust of Eamon De Valera, c1920 Bronze on green marble Base inscribed 1920, signed Jerome Connor Provenance: from the collection of the late Mr Justice Dermot Kinlen There are two Connor studies of Eamon de Valera. At the 1937 RHA, he exhibited a life size head and neck study. The National Gallery of Ireland has a modern bronze of this, inventory no. 8053. The second design, a bust, is known only from small scale examples, including the present piece, possibly cast for the Irish market c1937. Both designs date from a portrait sitting during de Valera's 1919-20 American tour in support of Irish independence. De Valera's own recollection was that this was at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, the Irish mission's headquarters. As Connor exhibited The Honorable Eamon de Valera, Portrait Bust at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1921, the sitting was probably late in 1920. While these portraits are a unique record, depicting de Valera at 37, then the undisputed leader of an (as yet unrecognized) Irish Republic, Connor's links with advanced nationalism predate this episode. He had already designed a Robert Emmet statue, a bronze of which was presented in 1917 to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, 'President Wilson attending'. Joseph McGarrity of the Emmet committee was in 1919-20 also a close de Valera aide, and in July 1919, soon after his arrival, de Valera travelled to San Francisco to unveil a second Connor Emmet before some 80,000 people. It was probably McGarrity who arranged the later portrait sitting. Giollamuire Ó Murchú €8000-12000