Lot 78: John Butler Yeats RHA (1839-1922) Bored Oil on

John Butler Yeats RHA (1839-1922) Bored Oil on canvas, 38.1 x 27.9cm (15 x 11'') Provenance: From the collection of the artist's Granddaughter Anne Yeats and her sale HOK RDS November 2002 Exhibited: The Royal Hibernian Academy, 1882 Cat. No. 272 John Butler Yeats first exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1880 and until 1908 he exhibited at total of eighty-five works. The present work was exhibited in 1882 at the RHA during a period when Yeats was concentrating on more serious subject matter, a series of drawings of the Phoenix Park murder trials. This half length portrait resembles the portrait of ''Jack B Yeats as a Boy'' painted 1883 and exhibited in the same year at the RHA, cat no.366. Both stylistically and in its pose this lady is posed to the right with her head turning back at a characteristic angle, her right arm is sketchily done, similar again to the Jack B Yeats portrait. He is also quite provocative in his use of colour, a trait which notes his later paintings. As a portrait painter he was highly praised and The Studio magazine said of his work that ''he had stamped his individuality upon his work in such a manner as to give it a certain distinction, a quality of uniqueness''.