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Lot Essay
'The present sketch typifies the numerous small on-the-spot studies which Lavery produced as aides-memoires. These informed an important series of canvases produced between 1923 and 1925 of which The Jockeys Dressing Room at Ascot (1923, Tate Gallery, London), The Weighing Room, Hurst Park (1924) and The Weighing-In of the Derby Winner (1924, both private collections) are the most important. These, taken with a group of outdoor racing scenes, resume a theme which the painter had begun to engage in the year before the outbreak of the First World War when, at the invitation of Lord Derby, he had painted at Newmarket. Although it is difficult to be precise, Childs appears to be seated upon a weighing chair, thus alluding to the 'weighing-in' process which was Lavery's principal motif (see K. McConkey, Sir John Lavery, Edinburgh, 1993, pp. 175-177). Since scales with slung seats were used at Epsom and Hurst Park, it is likely that the present sketch was painted at Ascot.
Childs is seen wearing the Rothschilds' colours. He rode Derby winners in 1916, 1918 and 1926. A leading jockey throughout the period dominated by Steve Donaghue, whose portrait was also painted by Lavery, he had more successes in the Five Classics than Donaghue, winning the Oaks and the St. Leger each on four occasions.
The exact circumstances of Lavery's gift to Sargent are unknown. The two painters had known one another for at least thirty years. Although Lavery's clientele as a portraitist was predominantly European, his quota of British sitters increased around 1910 when Sargent's interest in portrait painting waned. For Sargent the Portrait of Joe Childs was a relatively late acquisition to a collection which, when it was unveiled at Christie's in 1925 was seen to be highly eclectic. There were 48 oils including works by Mancini, Boldini, Bastien-Lepage, Pryde, Steer and two paintings by Monet acquired in the 1880s.'
(Kenneth McConkey, private correspondence, April 2000).
Childs is seen wearing the Rothschilds' colours. He rode Derby winners in 1916, 1918 and 1926. A leading jockey throughout the period dominated by Steve Donaghue, whose portrait was also painted by Lavery, he had more successes in the Five Classics than Donaghue, winning the Oaks and the St. Leger each on four occasions.
The exact circumstances of Lavery's gift to Sargent are unknown. The two painters had known one another for at least thirty years. Although Lavery's clientele as a portraitist was predominantly European, his quota of British sitters increased around 1910 when Sargent's interest in portrait painting waned. For Sargent the Portrait of Joe Childs was a relatively late acquisition to a collection which, when it was unveiled at Christie's in 1925 was seen to be highly eclectic. There were 48 oils including works by Mancini, Boldini, Bastien-Lepage, Pryde, Steer and two paintings by Monet acquired in the 1880s.'
(Kenneth McConkey, private correspondence, April 2000).