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164 148 John Butler Yeats RHA (1839-1922) IN A GONDOLA gouache signed and inscribed on artist’s label on reverse 13 by 18.50in. (33 by 47cm) Frame: 17.5 by 23in. (44 by 58cm.) Condition: Drying cracks and some flaking visible throughout. Possibly some minor surface dirt or discoloration. Framed with protective Perspex backing to reveal note preserved on reverse. Provenance: Inherited by the previous owner; Adam’s, 26 September 2012, lot 65; Private collection Exhibited: Nathaniel Hone & John Butler Yeats, Loan Exhibition, Dublin, 1901 Literature: Murphy, William, The Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats, 1839-1922, p116 and p232 This is one of two works that the poet, Dr John Todhunter, commissioned fromYeats based on Robert Browning’s series of poems entitled ‘’Bells and Pomegranates’’. The other is entitled ‘’Pippa Passes’’ and is in The National Gallery of Ireland Collection (Ref 3531). Browning’s poems tell how a girl from Asolo spends her New Year’s holiday imagining herself participating and influencing the lives of others. Todhunter started his working life in business but later became a medical doctor. He met Yeats at Trinity College Dublin while studying there from 1857 to 1862. At the time of painting this picture Yeats was sharing a studio with Edwin Ellis in London. Yeats, Ellis and J.T. Nettleship were members of an informal artistic brotherhood which had a common interest in Blake, Browning and the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Browning saw both this work and ‘’Pippa Passes’’ at Todhunter’s home in London, where they had also been admired by Rossetti. The model for Pippa in both this work and ‘’Pippa Passes’’ has been identified as Nelly Whelan. Todhunter lent both to the 1901 Hone-Yeats Exhibition that was organised by Sarah Purser and included 44 works by John Butler Yeats and 28 works by Hone. A label on reverse is inscribed with a stanza from Robert Browning’s In a Gondola ‘’Care no for the coward, care only to put aside thy beauteous hair, my blood will hurt’’ €3,000-€4,000 (£2,700-£3,600 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot148