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Lot Essay
Mrs Langtry as a Bacchante was painted by Lavery on the occasion of the Grand Costume Ball, held by Glasgow Art Club on behalf of the Scottish Artists' Benevolent Association, at St Andrew's Halls, Glasgow, on the evening of Friday 29 November 1889. The Association had been launched in February of that year and this event was intended to assist in raising its initial capital fund of £10,000.
The Ball attracted 967 revellers, the majority of whom wore fancy dress, are were drawn from the professional, merchant and manufacturer classes of Glasgow. When they arrived, they processed across a red carpet laid at the entrance to the Halls in Granville Street and were directed by attendants, incongruously attired as Beefeaters, into the Octagon Hall where the dance programme was set out on canvases painted by members of the Art Club.1
As an added attraction, the leading Glasgow School painters, dressed up as the great artists of the past and during the evening, formed a tableau vivant, based on Paul Delaroche's Hemicycle of the Arts (Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris).2 James Guthrie impersonated as the classical painter, Apelles; James Paterson was Sandro Botticelli; and Edward Arthur Walton clothed magnificently in a kimono appeared in the guise of Hokusai. Lavery, in wig and satin breeches, took on the role of Rembrandt. An adjacent room equipped as an artist's studio, was set aside and guests could have their portraits painted or witness 'a fresh old master at work every half hour'. A photograph of the studio shows Lavery surrounded by fellow artists, theatrically posed at the easel with settle and 'throne' for the use of sitters. (fig. 1).3
Lavery was kept busy. His best-known work of the evening, Hokusai and the Butterfly, 1889 (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), celebrated the engagement of Walton and Helen Law. He also painted A Corner of the Ballroom and A Milkmaid (both untraced) as well as a guest in late 18th Century costume (sold Christie's, Scotland, 26 October 2000, lot 61). Other sketches remain unidentified.
At 3 am on Saturday morning, when the proceedings must have been drawing to a close, 'Botticelli' made a swift watercolour sketch of 'Rembrandt painting the Lily' (fig. 2, untraced). This depicts Lavery painting one of the most celebrated guests - Mrs Lily Lantry. Born in Jersey in 1853, Lily Breton married Edward Lantry in 1874 and launched herself into London society in 1876, starting a much-publicised affair with the Prince of Wales the following year. Constantly in demand, she sat for Sir Edward Poynter and Sir John Everett Millais, both of whose portraits were shown at the Royal Academy in 1878. Millais' canvas, A Jersey Lily (Jersey Museums Service) gave her the name by which she became popularly known.4 She also modelled for Leighton and Watts and posed as one of the foreground maidens in Edward Burne-Jones' The Golden Stairs, 1876-80 (Tate Britain). By this time, Lantry had become a professional celebrity, taking to the stage in 1881 and appearing in advertisements for Pear's soap.5 International fame beckoned after she formed her own touring company and performed in theatres across the United States. Eventually she took American citizenship. The infamous Judge Roy Bean ('The Law west of Pecos'), named a town in Texas after her, and her portrait was painted by Childe Hassam in 1897 (Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington). By the turn of the century she returned to Europe a millionairess. Her husband, whom she had divorced in 1887, died penniless. Eventually she retired to Monaco where she died in 1929.
Her brief interlude with a painter whose life was to be equally extraordinary, occurrred at the end of an evening of revelry. Never one to succumb to fatigue, Lavery captured her characteristic profile, garlanded hair and vivid red dress, swathed in a leopard skin. In her right hand, concealed by the cape of her dress, she holds a floral staff, carried by other 'bacchante' twenty years later - Anna Pavlova as a Bacchante, 1911 (Glasgow Art Galleries and Museums). This life-size canvas of the Russian dancer, carried all the brio of a grand public performance. It provides a fitting contrast to his encounter with the 'Jersey Lily' - a precisly timed and documented moment of respite in an otherwise hectic touring schedule.
K.M.
1 Glasgow Art Club, Souvenir of the Grand Costume Ball on Behalf of the Scottish Artists' Benevolent Association, n.d., [c. 1890], n.p. For Lavery's dance menu, (Glasgow Art Club) see K. McConkey, Sir John Lavery, Edinburgh, 1993, p. 64.
2 Souvenir, plate II.
3 Souvenir, plate VII.
4 P. Funnell and M. Warner (eds.), Exhibition catalogue, Millais Portraits, London, National Portrait Gallery, 1999, pp. 209-11.
5 K. Flint, 'Portraits of Women: On Display', in Funnell and Warner, 1999, pp. 197-200.
The Ball attracted 967 revellers, the majority of whom wore fancy dress, are were drawn from the professional, merchant and manufacturer classes of Glasgow. When they arrived, they processed across a red carpet laid at the entrance to the Halls in Granville Street and were directed by attendants, incongruously attired as Beefeaters, into the Octagon Hall where the dance programme was set out on canvases painted by members of the Art Club.
As an added attraction, the leading Glasgow School painters, dressed up as the great artists of the past and during the evening, formed a tableau vivant, based on Paul Delaroche's Hemicycle of the Arts (Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris).
Lavery was kept busy. His best-known work of the evening, Hokusai and the Butterfly, 1889 (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), celebrated the engagement of Walton and Helen Law. He also painted A Corner of the Ballroom and A Milkmaid (both untraced) as well as a guest in late 18th Century costume (sold Christie's, Scotland, 26 October 2000, lot 61). Other sketches remain unidentified.
At 3 am on Saturday morning, when the proceedings must have been drawing to a close, 'Botticelli' made a swift watercolour sketch of 'Rembrandt painting the Lily' (fig. 2, untraced). This depicts Lavery painting one of the most celebrated guests - Mrs Lily Lantry. Born in Jersey in 1853, Lily Breton married Edward Lantry in 1874 and launched herself into London society in 1876, starting a much-publicised affair with the Prince of Wales the following year. Constantly in demand, she sat for Sir Edward Poynter and Sir John Everett Millais, both of whose portraits were shown at the Royal Academy in 1878. Millais' canvas, A Jersey Lily (Jersey Museums Service) gave her the name by which she became popularly known.
Her brief interlude with a painter whose life was to be equally extraordinary, occurrred at the end of an evening of revelry. Never one to succumb to fatigue, Lavery captured her characteristic profile, garlanded hair and vivid red dress, swathed in a leopard skin. In her right hand, concealed by the cape of her dress, she holds a floral staff, carried by other 'bacchante' twenty years later - Anna Pavlova as a Bacchante, 1911 (Glasgow Art Galleries and Museums). This life-size canvas of the Russian dancer, carried all the brio of a grand public performance. It provides a fitting contrast to his encounter with the 'Jersey Lily' - a precisly timed and documented moment of respite in an otherwise hectic touring schedule.
K.M.