The Tops of the Mountains

Details

Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A. (1871-1957)
The Tops of the Mountains
signed 'JACK B YEATS' (lower right) and inscribed 'The Mountain Top/Whistler' (on the reverse)
oil on panel
9 x 14 in. (22.8 x 35.5 cm.)
Painted circa 1925-26

Provenance

Sean O'Casey, by whom purchased at the 1926 exhibition.
with Victor Waddington Galleries, London.
Dr John Cussen.
with Thomas Agnew & Sons, London.

Literature

Liverpool Post, 9 April 1926.
H. Pyle, Jack B. Yeats A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings I, London, 1992, no. 310, p. 283, illustrated.

Exhibited

London, Tooth & Sons, Paintings of Irish Life, April 1926, no. 20.
London, Waddington Galleries, Jack Yeats Paintings, February-March 1965, no. 3, illustrated.
London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Modern British Exhibition 1887-1988, November-December 1988, no. 93.
Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Jack B. Yeats, February-March 1995, no. 8.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

On 9 April 1926 the Liverpool Post noted Yeats's developing palette and handling in the works then on show at Arthur Tooth & Son: 'This fluent use of paint is more noticeable than ever in Mr Yeats's work this year, and there is an increased delicacy in his colour and sensibility in the employment of it, illustrated by the little Death of the Croppy Boy, Queen's Theatre, for example, and by the charming small landscapes, In Kildare, The Tops of the Mountains, and others'.

Hilary Pyle (loc. cit.) comments on the present work: 'A freely painted landscape of mountain tops beneath a restless sky. Stylistically it belongs with the smooth landscapes of 1925, though the expressive brushwork of the foreground suggests it is a transitional work'.

More from THE IRISH SALE

View All