WHYTE'S EXCEPTIONAL IRISH ART MONDAY 7 DECEMBER 2020

64 42 Robert MacCameron (American, 1866–1912) PORTRAIT OF EDWARD CARSON, 1911 oil on canvas signed and dated upper left 36 by 28in. (91.4 by 71.1cm) Frame Size: 43 by 34.5in. (109.2 by 87.6cm) Condition: This work appears to be in very good condition. The surface is clean. There are some drying cracks visible on very close inspection. Two small tears in the canvas were professionally restored prior to auction. Provenance: Family of the sitter Robert MacCameron was born in Chicago and studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts. He died in New York city and is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. Among MacCameron’s other famous sitters were the 27th President of the United States, William Howard Taft, 1909 (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian) and French sculptor, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). The latter was painted the year previous to the Carson portrait, in 1910, and shows the sculptor holding a model of his iconic work The Thinker. Rodin and MacCameron discussed sending the portrait to The Met, but it travelled instead to New York’s Academy of Design and Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute. Collector and financier J. Pierpont Morgan acquired it and, in 1912, he gave it to The Met, where it hung in a new gallery dedicated to Rodin. It remains in their collection (accession no. 12.171). Other examples by MacCameron can be found in the Smithsonian, Washington, DC and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The former holds an archive collection of correspondence and writings by MacCameron donated by the artist’s grandson in 2004. Dublin born Edward Henry Carson, Baron Carson, (1854-1935), was an Irish unionist politician, barrister and judge. From 1905 Carson was both the Irish Unionist Alliance MP for Trinity College Dublin and leader of the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast. It would have been around the time that Carson accepted James Craig’s invitation to lead the Ulster Unionists that the present portrait was painted in 1911. In 1915 he entered the war cabinet of Herbert Asquith as Attorney-General. Carson was defeated in his ambition to maintain Ireland as a whole in union with Great Britain. His leadership, however, was celebrated for securing a continued place in the United Kingdom for the six north-east counties, albeit under a devolved Northern Ireland Parliament that neither he nor his fellow unionists had sought. He is also remembered for his open-ended cross examination of Oscar Wilde in a legal action that Wilde had brought, but led to him being gaoled and ruined. Carson unsuccessfully attempted to intercede for Wilde after the case. €3,000-€5,000 (£2,670-£4,440 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot42 43 Withdrawn