WHYTE'S CHRISTMAS ONLINE ART SALE 12 December 2022

185 CHRISTMAS ONLINE ART AUCTION · ENDS MONDAY 12 DECEMBER 2022 FROM 6PM 178 LeoWhelan RHA (1892-1956) A LITTLE BOY WITH A ROCKING HORSE, 1901 watercolour, pencil, pen and ink signed and dated lower right 12 by 8in. (30.5 by 20.3cm) Frame Size: 19 by 14.5in. (48.3 by 36.8cm) Provenance: Whyte’s, 17 September 2007, lot 99; Private collection Leo Whelan was a precociously talented artist. By the age of eleven he was enrolled at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art where, a few years later, Orpen would encounter him and rate him as one of the “promising youth”. As a child he won numerous prizes for art: in 1901 he won a silver medal at the National Art Competition for ‘foliage modelled from nature’ and in the same year was awarded the prestigious King’s Prize for his exam results. Two years later he won the only medal to be awarded to a student at DMSA in the National Competition: a bronze for his chalk study of drapery arranged on the antique figure. It has been suggested that the present work is a self-portrait, although it seems more probable that the sitter was in fact a younger brother or cousin of Whelan’s. €800-€1,200 (£700-£1,040 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot178