IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART 29 SEPTEMBER 2025

35 IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART · 29 SEPTEMBER 2025 AT 6PM 21 Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) PIRATE READING or A BOOKPLATE FOR A PIRATE, 1902 pen and ink with watercolour signed lower left and inscribed “HIS BOOK” at base 5.50 by 3.25 by 5in. (14 by 8.3 by 12.7cm) Frame Size: 15.5 by 12.25in. (39.4 by 31.1cm) Provenance: Sold by the artist to Oliver Sheean Esq, Portland, Maine, April 1939; Purchased fromMr Sheean’s estate by F. M. O’Brien, Antiquarian Bookseller, Portland Maine, circa 1952; Private collection; Whyte’s, 26 April 2005, lot 62; Private collection Exhibited: possibly as A Bookplate for a Pirate, ‘Jack B. Yeats: Sketches of Life in the West of Ireland’, Wells Central Hall, Dublin, 18-30 August 1902, catalogue no. 34 Literature: Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: His Watercolours, Drawings and Pastels, Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1993, catalogue no. 424; Hilary Pyle, The Different Worlds of Jack B. Yeats: His Cartoons and Illustrations, Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1994, catalogue no. 2098 This is the original pen and ink drawing with watercolour wash, recorded in Yeats’ account book as having sold to the bibliophile and art collector Oliver Sheean Esq, April 1939. The drawing was the basis of a printed bookplate, most probably printed at the Cuala Press, an example of which is reproduced in The Different Worlds, op. cit, page 296. Pyle notes the influence of the theatre designer and etcher Gordon Craig on Yeats’ composition in this work, and observes it is a treatment later revisited in another bookplate, AWarning Against Borrowers. €6,000-€8,000 (£5,220-£6,960 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot21