WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART Monday 19 October 2020

42 24 Sir John Lavery RA RSA RHA (1856-1941) ALAMEDA DE HERCULES, SEVILLA, 1892 oil on canvas laid on board signed and dated lower left; titled in pencil on backing board (concealed); with envelope detailing title and artist’s name and containing Lavery’s signed card within, affixed on reverse 8.50 by 5.50in. (21.6 by 14cm) Frame size: 17 by 14in. (43 by 36cm.) Provenance: Private collection, Scotland, since the 1890s; Thence by family descent to the present owners Presented in what appears to be its original frame. At the end of March 1892, Lavery and his friend, Alexander Mann (1853-1908) left Tangier to travel through Spain and France before returning to Scotland. The two painters were already well-supplied with sketches, and in Lavery’s case, they would help him fashion A Moorish Dance, his large canvas, destined for the Royal Academy in the following spring. 1 In Seville they were joined by two other Glasgow artists - James Garden Laing (1852-1915) and Alexander MacBride (1859-1955). Lavery had painted The Tennis Party (Aberdeen Art Gallery) in the garden of the MacBride family villa at Cathcart, back in 1885. Fine weather coupled with its undoubted attractions, encouraged the painter to stay a little longer than expected and he roamed the streets and the Royal Cigarette Factory, looking for motifs. Seville Cathedral with its Giralda tower and the nearby Alcázar, were already well-known from topographical prints, and Lavery’s quest was for the true ambiance of the city. His most significant street view was that of the Alameda de Hércules, where, in the cool of a spring evening, Sevillanas would promenade. The Alameda - literally a ‘poplar walk’ - was fringed with booths and sideshows, one of which can be seen beyond the central ‘Corinthian’ column in Lavery’s painting. The tree-lined walk takes its name however, from the statue of Hercules, the legendary founder of the city, mounted on the left-hand column. Both were salvaged from the ruins of a Roman temple nearby. 2 Since it was constructed in the sixteenth century to help drain the swamp created by the damming of the Guadalquivir, the Alameda has suffered many vicissitudes as the city expanded around it. 3 In Lavery’s time it was a hive of activity, especially during religious festivals and the feria, when locals from the Macarena and Triana districts would parade, and, on occasion, burst spontaneously into dance and song. Writers from Théophile Gautier to Arthur Symons were delighted by such scenes. For the first, this was an ideal place to observe the ‘nonchalance and vivacity’ of Sevillian women, while, in the winter of 1898, the latter records sitting in the warm shade of acacias and orange trees, observing the same passing show, for Seville was ‘a city of pleasure’. 4 This evening parade has not commenced in Lavery’s painting, but the shadows are lengthening. Although charmed by the huge Royal Cigarette Factory, here, in the streets and under ancient pillars, his small pochade box was put to best use. Mann reports in a letter that Lavery intended to return to the city the following year, but this, if it happened, cannot be confirmed. What we have here is unique in the oeuvre. 5 Swiftly executed, it demonstrates remarkable fluency in the management of colour and tone. The trees are greening up and the low buildings of no special distinction, form simple slabs of white, orange and pale grey. Two women converse in the sunlight; one wearing a bright red shawl. And that would be all, were it not for the fact that in a cloudless sky, that their whispered confessions are overheard by the ancients. Prof. Kenneth McConkey August 2020 Footnotes: 1 . Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery, A Painter and his World, 2010 (Atelier Books), pp. 60-62. 2 . The column bearing Julius Caesar’s statue celebrates the Emperor who expanded the original settlement. At the far end of the walk are two matching modern columns containing sculptures representing ‘Spain’ and ‘Seville’. 3 . The Alameda fell into disrepair in the twentieth century, but with the ending of the Franco regime and the growth of tourism in the last forty years, it has been brought back to life. 4 . Théophile Gautier, En Espagne, 1845 (trans Catharine Alison Phillips, 1926; Signal Books, Oxford, reprint, 2001), p. 268-7; Arthur Symons, ‘Seville’, 1898 (reprinted in Cities and Sea Coasts and Islands, 1918, Collins), pp. 3-6. 5 . Martin Hopkinson introd., Alexander Mann, 1853-1908, Sketches and Correspondence with his Wife and Family, 1985 (exhibition catalogue, Fine Art Society), n.p.; see also McConkey, 2010, p. 62. Mann, like Lavery, worked in nearby streets but also in surrounding villages. Sketches of the Alameda by Mann, Laing and Macbride, if they exist, have yet to surface. €8,000-€12,000 (£7,110-£10,670 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot24