Dinner with Major General Sir Henry Merrick Lawson, C.B. at the Kildare St. Club, 26 January 1907

The present drawing was executed to accompany one of several letters which Orpen wrote to his wife, Grace whilst visiting Dublin in January 1907. From these letters we learn that Orpen was to have dinner with General Lawson on 26 January, after which he and Lady Gregory were going to the opening of Synge's Playboy of the Western World. Orpen was at this time working on a portrait of General Lawson which, from the illustrations in his letters, it seems he thoroughly enjoyed painting. In contrast the other commission which he was working on, a portrait of Mrs Goodbody, he found difficult and tiresome.

The drawing bears a number of similarities to Lane's Dinner, January 1907, also at the Kildare Club and also featuring, among others, General Lawson (sold Christie's, London, 20 May 1999, lot 29).

The Orpen Research Project