.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Jack Butler Yeats's The Last Corinthian, is an exceptionally early oil painting by the artist and it's execution, in 1910, coincided with his permanant relocation to Ireland and his total abandonment of watercolour in favour of oil.
The picture takes it's inspiration from the soubriquet Corinthian to describe Rakes or Men-About-Town of Regency times and Yeats referred to them as 'those noble supporters of the Ring' (Pyle p. 729), The lone figure, or Last Corinthian, remembers the feast days of his youth and the picture's subdued palette lends a nostalgic and poignant atmosphere.
The picture remained in the artist's collection until 1942 when it was sold to John Whelan Dulanty.
John Whelan Dulanty (1883- 1955) was born near Manchester to Irish parents. From the age of eleven, he worked half time in a cotton mill, attending school for the rest of the day.
"Most of us half timers died young", he said. "But those of us who have survived count the hardest day's work a luxury cushion after that juvenile sweat and toil and terror."
At thirteen, he became a full timer , educating himself at nightschool and becoming known as a fearless and eloquent speaker.
He read law at Manchester University, entered the Middle Temple and in 1910 was appointed advisor to Indian students attending universities in northern England. He worked on GK's Weekly and at the Clarion. A friend of W.B and Jack Yeats, Shaw and Joyce, he later became guardian to Joyce's grandson. He was honorary director of Redmond's United Irish League of Great Britain. He married Nan Hutton in April 1909 and they had four children. After helping Winston Churchill in his 1908 campaign to secure the seat of north west Manchester, Dulanty became Churchill's principle assistant secretary at the Ministry of Munitions between 1912 and 1918. He was assistant secretary at the Treasury in 1918 for which he was awarded a C.B. and C.B.E. In 1920 he resigned from the civil service in protest at the government's Irish policy ,declining Lloyd George's offer of Irish Treasury rememberancer. For the next six years he was managing director and deputy chairman of Peter Jones in Sloane Square.
In the same year he was involved in the negotiations resulting in the creation of the Irish Free State. In 1926 he was appointed Irish trade commissioner for the free state in the United Kingdon and became high commissioner in 1930. In 1931 he was closely involved in negotiations which resulted in the Statute of Westminster, confirming the advance to separate sovereignty. When Eamon De Valera's Fianna Fail party was victorious in 1932, Dulanty was retained in office and until 1939 he provided the chief diplomatic conduit between the two governments and personally avoided a number of serious constitutional crises, 'Mr Dulanty is thoroughly friendly to England.' Churchill remarked, 'He acts as a general smoother, representing everything Irish in the most favourable light'. He facilitated the wartime visits to Dublin of the South African deputy prime minister and the Australian prime minister and promoted Irish commerce abroad. Following the declaration of a republic in 1949, he became the first Irish ambassador to the court of St. James.
The picture takes it's inspiration from the soubriquet Corinthian to describe Rakes or Men-About-Town of Regency times and Yeats referred to them as 'those noble supporters of the Ring' (Pyle p. 729), The lone figure, or Last Corinthian, remembers the feast days of his youth and the picture's subdued palette lends a nostalgic and poignant atmosphere.
The picture remained in the artist's collection until 1942 when it was sold to John Whelan Dulanty.
John Whelan Dulanty (1883- 1955) was born near Manchester to Irish parents. From the age of eleven, he worked half time in a cotton mill, attending school for the rest of the day.
"Most of us half timers died young", he said. "But those of us who have survived count the hardest day's work a luxury cushion after that juvenile sweat and toil and terror."
At thirteen, he became a full timer , educating himself at nightschool and becoming known as a fearless and eloquent speaker.
He read law at Manchester University, entered the Middle Temple and in 1910 was appointed advisor to Indian students attending universities in northern England. He worked on GK's Weekly and at the Clarion. A friend of W.B and Jack Yeats, Shaw and Joyce, he later became guardian to Joyce's grandson. He was honorary director of Redmond's United Irish League of Great Britain. He married Nan Hutton in April 1909 and they had four children. After helping Winston Churchill in his 1908 campaign to secure the seat of north west Manchester, Dulanty became Churchill's principle assistant secretary at the Ministry of Munitions between 1912 and 1918. He was assistant secretary at the Treasury in 1918 for which he was awarded a C.B. and C.B.E. In 1920 he resigned from the civil service in protest at the government's Irish policy ,declining Lloyd George's offer of Irish Treasury rememberancer. For the next six years he was managing director and deputy chairman of Peter Jones in Sloane Square.
In the same year he was involved in the negotiations resulting in the creation of the Irish Free State. In 1926 he was appointed Irish trade commissioner for the free state in the United Kingdon and became high commissioner in 1930. In 1931 he was closely involved in negotiations which resulted in the Statute of Westminster, confirming the advance to separate sovereignty. When Eamon De Valera's Fianna Fail party was victorious in 1932, Dulanty was retained in office and until 1939 he provided the chief diplomatic conduit between the two governments and personally avoided a number of serious constitutional crises, 'Mr Dulanty is thoroughly friendly to England.' Churchill remarked, 'He acts as a general smoother, representing everything Irish in the most favourable light'. He facilitated the wartime visits to Dublin of the South African deputy prime minister and the Australian prime minister and promoted Irish commerce abroad. Following the declaration of a republic in 1949, he became the first Irish ambassador to the court of St. James.