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IMPORTANT IRISH ART · 28 NOVEMBER 2016 AT 6PM
24
William John Leech RHA ROI (1881-1968)
HEAD OF A GIRL [A BOTTERELL FAMILY MEMBER]
pencil
signed lower right; titled on reverse
11.75 by 9.75in. (29.85 by 24.77cm)
Provenance:
Collection of George and Maura McClelland
William John Leech met the Botterell family in London in 1919, at the end of the First WorldWar, on his
return from painting in France and the Botterell family’s return from Holland. Percy Botterell, an
eminent London lawyer had been a commercial attaché to The Hague during the war, and through his
wife May, they had met Leech’s older brother, Cecil. Cecil Leech had fought in the First WorldWar, as a
commissioned officer in the Royal Horse Artillery. He had spent four years in a prisoner of war camp and
as a released prisoner met May Botterell in Holland, where she had organised a relief centre for released
prisoners, providing clothes, money and information to aid prisoners on their return home. It was Cecil
Leech who, on his return to London, organised the meeting between the Botterell family and the Leech
family and it was Percy Botterell who commissionedW. J. Leech to paint portraits of himself, his wife,
May and his three children, James, Guy and Suzanne. This meeting and the painting of May’s portrait was
to change the Botterell family life irrevocably and was to begin the lifelong relationship between May
Botterell andW. J. Leech, which culminated in their wedding in 1953, after the deaths of Percy Botterell in
1951 and Leech’s wife Elizabeth, in 1950.
Dr Denise Ferran
€400-€600 (£360-£550 approx.)
Click Here for Large Images & To Bid Lot 24