Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958) PORTRAIT OF AN ELDERLY LADY, c.1904-1905 UPDATE:THIS WAS UNSOLD)
This finely drawn Paul Henry charcoal portrait of an elderly lady recalls a period when the artist worked as an illustrator for a newspaper. It is lot 28 at Whyte’s upcoming sale of Irish and International Art at the RDS, Dublin on February 27. According to catalogue notes by Dr. S.B. Kennedy it was almost certainly for the weekly journal To-day, founded in 1893 by Jerome K. Jerome. Unsurprisingly the journal had a literary bias and scope for illustration. Henry worked on a “types” series in 1904-05. All of these drawings showed his debt to Whistler, his former teacher in Paris, whose funeral he had attended in 1903.
The “types” series began with The Unfortunate, a drawing of an elderly pauper reading a paper by the Thames Embankment at dusk. It was followed by The Grandmother, The Ballad Singer, The Crank and others. The work is estimated at 5,000-7,000.
Whyte’s sale of 187 lots features work from many major artists of the last two centuries. The catalogue is on line. Viewing at the RDS gets underway on February 25.