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Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)
ON THE COURTHOUSE STEPS, 1946
oil on canvas
signed lower right; inscribed with title on stretcher on reverse; with typed Arts Council exhibition label affixed
on reverse; also with Dawson Gallery framing label on reverse
14 by 18in. (35.56 by 45.72cm)
Provenance:
Purchased directly from the artist by Leo Smith, April 1946;
with the Dawson Gallery, Dublin;
‘The Irish Sale’, Christies, 12 May 2006, lot 74;
Private collection
Exhibited:
‘Contemporary Irish Art Society: Paintings and Sculpture from Private Collections’, Municipal Gallery, Dublin, July
1965, exhibition no. 72;
‘Modern Irish Painting, European Tour’, Arts Council of Ireland (An Chomhairle Ealaíon), Dublin, 1969-1971,
exhibition no. 54, travelling exhibition: Helsinki, Gothenburg, Norköpping, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bielefeld,
Bonn, Saarbrücken, London, Leeds, Glasgow, Mayo and Donegal
Literature:
Pyle, Hilary, Jack B. Yeats A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Vol. II, p.672, no. 744 (illustrated, Vol. III, p.396)
Contained in its original hand-carved Waddington frame.
The painting shows a vagrant resting on the steps of a court house, identified as that of Naas, Co. Kildare.1 His stick and bundle of
belongings are beside him. The man’s casual appearance is in marked contrast to the classical formality of the building which is
typical of the grand-style architecture of Irish court houses. These were designed to project a sense of authority on to the
surrounding streets and their inhabitants, although this is not evident in Yeats’ picture.
Yeats had a long-standing fascination with the courts and their goings on. His father, John Butler Yeats’ career as a barrister had
ended abruptly when he became more interested in sketching the protagonists in court than in the delivery of his legal duties.
Several of Jack’s sketchbooks contain images of rural trials and legal proceedings including several concerning poteen making. In
1901 he sketched Galway’s court house paying close attention to the prominent coat of arms on its pediment.2 Yeats’ burlesque
treatment of the relationship between the Irish citizen and the colonial formality of the court also features in the writings of his
favourite dramatist, Dion Boucicault and in the novels of Somerville and Ross.
In his sketches Yeats draws attention to the irreverent attitude of the populace to the courts while noting the importance of the
petty sessions and court related activity to town life in rural Ireland. Painted in the remarkably prolific year of 1946 this work is
undoubtedly inspired by memories of such scenes. However, in this case the business of the court is not evident and other aspects
of human life take precedence. Like some other works of the later 1940s, the paint is thinly applied, allowing the white of the primed
canvas to function visually as the stone facade of the building and steps. The reclining stance of the traveller is counteracted by the
running child in the right foreground. Behind her from the shadows of the building she pulls her tiny companion who sits in a go-
cart. Their dynamism is echoed in the strong diagonal sweep of the composition, emphasised by the stretch of the road in the
foreground. All three figures, the children and the old man, evoke the idea of free spirits at either ends of their imaginative lives.
A strutting cockerel on the steps of the court house adds to the sense of the pastoral. It may also be a humorous allusion to the self-
importance of the legal establishment and the official role of the court house.
Róisín Kennedy
February 2012
1 Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, 1992, II, p.672
2 The writer acknowledges the assistance of Pauline Swords, Yeats Archivist, National Gallery of Ireland for information on the sketchbook images.
€90,000-€120,000 (£75,630-£100,840 approx)
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