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Artist: John Butler Yeats RHA (1839-1922) Title: A Young Boy Pulling on His Boot (A Young William Butler Yeats) Medium: watercolour, heightened in white on paper Size: 34.20 x 25.30cm (13.5 x 10in) Framed Size: 59 x 49.7cm (23.2 x 19.6in) Provenance: Yeats Family Collection; The Estate of late Senator Michael Butler Yeats; Adam's, 6th December 2010, lot 2010; Private Collection a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Set against a plain background, with just the slightest of shadows to suggest a chair, a boy sits, with legs crossed. His eyes are downcast as he concentrates on the task of pulling on his boot. The boy’s boots have seen better days, as has his jacket, which is small, torn at the shoulder and can on... Read more John Butler Yeats Lot 27 - 'A Young Boy Pulling on His Boot (A Young William Butler Yeats)' Estimate: €3,000 - €5,000 Set against a plain background, with just the slightest of shadows to suggest a chair, a boy sits, with legs crossed. His eyes are downcast as he concentrates on the task of pulling on his boot. The boy’s boots have seen better days, as has his jacket, which is small, torn at the shoulder and can only be buttoned at the neck. It appears that the sole of the boot has been crudely repaired. The drawing is almost certainly a portrait of the artist’s son William Butler Yeats, aged about ten. Growing up in a household characterised by genteel poverty, W B Yeats was obliged to wear hand-me-down clothing. When attending the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin, he turned this, as best he could, to advantage, cultivating a Bohemian and poetic appearance. This drawing can be compared with a similar sketch, reproduced in Prodigal Father, William Murphy’s biography of John Butler Yeats, on page 100. The son of a Church of Ireland rector, John Butler Yeats was born in 1839 in Co. Down. Although best-known nowadays as the father of Jack Butler Yeats and William Butler Yeats, and their sisters, Elizabeth Corbet (‘Lolly’) and Susan Mary (‘Lily’), he was a talented artist, specialising in portraits. After attending Atholl Academy on the Isle of Man, Yeats studied at Trinity College Dublin. During a visit to Sligo in 1862, he and Susan Pollexfen became engaged, and the following year the couple married. Yeats then studied law in Dublin, but became dissatisfied, and decided to move with his wife and children to London, to study art. He enrolled first in Heatherley’s School of Art, and afterwards attended the Slade. Initially the family spent summer holidays at Sligo, but by the early 1870’s, Susan and the children were staying for longer periods in Ireland, while John Butler remained at Bedford Park in London. Although he moved between London and Dublin in search of commissions, his restless temperament meant that he was often unable to complete a portrait, and his career did not prosper. The strain wore on Susan; after suffering a stroke in 1887 she became an invalid, and died thirteen years later. The American lawyer John Quinn then helped Yeats to settle with his daughters in Dublin, and in 1901 he had a joint exhibition with Nathaniel Hone The following year, Hugh Lane commissioned Yeats to paint a series of portraits of people in the Irish literary revival, for a new museum of modern art proposed for Dublin. After accompanying Lily to New York in 1908, Yeats decided to settle in Manhattan. Befriending Robert Henri and John Sloan he lived and worked in New York until his death in 1922. During a restless life, Yeats, the son of a clergyman, had renounced not only Christianity, but also his liberal unionist background, becoming a committed Irish nationalist. His most celebrated portrait is of the veteran Fenian John O’Leary (1904), but his sketches, as with this portrait of his son William, are his finest artistic works; sensitive, skilled and atmospheric. Pet