The First Costume (La Premiere Mode)

The present work was used as an illustration, the frontispiece, for a book on Costume Designs by Modern Artists. The book, Robes of Thespis, was published in 1928. In the preface, Rupert Mason, who commissioned the book, states that with some eminent artists he 'placed commissions to produce designs specially for this book, and from others I purchased drawings and designs hitherto unpublished'. Given the inscriptions under the drawing this work was more likely a commission and therefore most likely dates to 1926, i.e. the year Orpen r ecords its sale in his Studio Account Book. With the face hidden it is virtually impossible to identify the model, but he undertook few nudes after the Great War, mainly his then French mistress Yvonne Aubicq in the early 1920s, an unidentified nude in the picture entitled Sunlight (mid-1920s) (National Gallery of Ireland), and in his last years an unidentified nude, who can be seen in one of his last genre pictures Eve in the Garden of Eden (1931) (Royal Academy, London).

We are very grateful to Christopher Pearson of the Orpen Research Project for preparing this catalogue entry.