The Fool Chase

Details

Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A. (1871-1957)
The Fool Chase
signed 'JACK B/YEATS' (lower right) and inscribed twice 'The Fool Chase' (on the reverse and on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
14 x 18 in. (35.5 x 45.8 cm.)
Painted in 1942.

Provenance

Purchased by Terence de Vere White at the 1944 exhibition.
Arland Ussher, 1945.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 26 December 1969, lot 94.
with Victor Waddington, London.
Private collection, Dublin, 1969.
Private collection, Switzerland, 1970.

Literature

H. Pyle, Jack B. Yeats A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings I, London, 1992, p. 491, no. 535, illustrated.

Exhibited

Dublin, National College of Art, Irish Exhibition of Living Art, 1944, no. 78.
Dublin, National College of Art, National Loan Exhibition, June - July 1945, no. 114.
Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, 1957, no. 84.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

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Lot Essay

Pyle comments, 'A clown with a banjo is pursued by a man in fancy cavalier dress, holding a musket, in an open field, perhaps a fairground. They are watched from a distance by some other people.

The landscape is recognisably an Irish one, with a cottage and a castle. Otherwise the mood is one of fantasy, of a lively and merry character' (Pyle, loc. cit).

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