WHYTE'S SPRING ONLINE ART SALE Ends Monday 28 March 2022 from 6PM

113 SPRING ONLINE ART SALE Ends Monday 28 March 2022 from 6PM 106 Seán Keating PPRHA HRA HRSA (1889-1977) THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERNWORLD by John Millington Synge deluxe edition; (no. 264 from an edition of 1,000) 12 by 10 by 1.50in. (30.5 by 25.4 by 3.8cm) A Comedy in Three Acts. With Ten Illustrations by John Keating RHA. London: George Allen, 1927. Edition de Luxe, one of 1,000 of which this is no. 264. Pages, 112. Folio, bound in quarter cloth, pale green paper boards. Title printed in black to upper cover and stamped in gilt on spine. Housed in original box with title label to cover. A fine copy in preserved box. A very handsome production of Synge’s masterpiece with ten plates in colour by Keating, each with titled tissue-guards. There is no evidence that Keating ever met John Millington Synge, but in 1917 the artist exhibited a painting in the RHA titled The Outlandish Lovers, which was inspired by The Playboy of the Western World. Synge’s nephew, known as ‘Hutchie’, approached Keating in 1922 with a commission to paint twelve illustrations for a proposed deluxe volume of The Playboy of the Western World. In the event, ten of the twelve images were published. The full set of paintings was to have been ready in 1926, but a delay on Keating’s part meant that the book was finally published as a numbered series of one thousand copies in 1927. €600-€800 (£500-£660 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot106