Adams Important Irish Art 27th May 2015 : Large Image & Place Bid Click Lot Title.

100 / 172

Oil on board, 25.5 X 30.5 cm (10 x 12”) (1920)
Signed, also signed, inscribed with title and dated 1920 verso
From the 1830s North Africa and the Middle East became places of artistic pil-
grimage, but while painters such as Lewis, Lear and Holman Hunt preferred
the eastern Mediterranean, in Lavery’s era an instant Orient was to be found by
simply crossing the Straits of Gibraltar. Where Orientalist painters concentrated
upon narrating the Eastern way of life, the rituals of the Mosque and the Harem,
Lavery’s generation looked to this environment for its colour. His first visit to
Morocco took place in 1891, at the instigation of his friends, the Glasgow art-
ists Arthur Melville and Joseph Crawhall. After almost annual visits, in 1903 he
bought Dar-el-Midfah (‘the House of the Cannon’, for a half buried cannon in the
garden), a small house in the hills outside Tangier which he continued to visit with
his family over the next 20 years.
Dr Kenneth McConkey has documented Lavery’s journey to Rabat. Due to
the war Lavery had not been to Morocco for six years returning in January 1920.
He was present when with great fanfare the Moroccan flag was raised over the
German Legation building in the market square in Tangier. The Lavery’s then
sailed down the coast of Spanish North Africa to Rabat where he sketched the
harbour and “Rue des Femmes” before travelling inlaid by car to Marrakesh.
It has been claimed that for Lavery the strong light, cloudless sky, white walls
and bright colour of Arab dress helped to cleanse his eye after sustained periods
of studio portraiture. Within a few years of visiting Morocco for the first time,
the light sable sketching of his Glasgow period gave way to a richer and more
sensuous application.
With thanks to Dr Kenneth McConkey whose research and writings formed the
basis of this note.
€10,000 - €15,000