IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART 9 MARCH 2026

25 IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART · MONDAY 9 MARCH 2026 AT 6PM 1 Bruce Arnold, Orpen, Mirror to an Age, 1981, (Jonathan Cape), p. 163.; for Orpen’s pedagogical aids see Robert Upstone, William Orpen, Teaching the Body, 2009 (Tate Britain). 2 Orpen and Augustus John, former ‘stars’ of the Slade School of Fine Art, opened their Chelsea School of Art at the start of 1904, while their networks, and reputations, were growing rapidly. The school however, lasted into its second year when it was sold on; Arnold 1981, pp. 191-2; see also Emma Chambers, Student Stars at the Slade 1894-1899, Augustus John andWilliam Orpen, 2004 (exhibition catalogue, UCL Art Collections); 3 In most early extant Orpen life studies, produced in men-only classes male genitalia are exposed. The presence of a loin cloth in The Rebel, (Study of a Man Recumbent, 1902) may, without written evidence to prove it, indicate that the present work was produced in a teaching studio with both male and female students present. 4 Orpen exhibited Study of a Man Recumbent, (no 51, the present picture), The Rebel (no 78, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork), Study of Myself (no 91, Glasgow Museums) and The Chess-Players (no 129, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). 5 P.G. Konody and Sidney Dark, Sir William Orpen, Artist and Man, Seeley Service, London, 1932, p.158; see also Robert Upstone ed., William Orpen, Sex, Politics and Death, 2005 (Imperial War Museum & PhilipWilson Publishers), p. 19. 6 In the case of The Rebel, the muzzle of a ‘shotgun’ was noted as the only addition justifying its title. The discarded hat may be a later addition. 7 See Lot Essay by Orpen Research Project, Sotheby’s 7 May 2008. The presence of two so visually similar works in the New English winter exhibition leaves open the question of Orpen’s intention. A prone figure is approached differently when the muzzle of what was described by a contemporary reviewer as a ‘shotgun’, is visible by its side. 8 Two versions of St Patrick are known (Potteries Museum, Stoke-on- Trent, and unlocated) and three versions of Job (Johannesburg Art Gallery, National Gallery of Ireland and Private Collection). 9 Kenneth McConkey, ‘Dark Identities, Orpen’s Hispanic Repertory’, The British Art Journal, vol VII, no 3, 2006-7, pp. 62-69. Upstone 2005, p. 19 referring to the Crawford Art Gallery picture, suggests that the figure may be a Paris Communard or a rebel from the 1848 Revolution, his form influenced by the pest-house figures of Baron Gros. 10 See for instance, Nude on the Rock, 1930-1 (Private Collection); Eve in the Garden of Eden, 1930-1 and Nude Female Model (Reading on the Seashore), 1930-1 (both Royal Academy of Arts, London). €30,000-€40,000 (£26,090-£34,780 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot13