Lot 157
SIR JOHN LAVERY R.A., R.S.A., R.H.A. (IRISH 1856-1941)
AU BAL, THE BLACK GOWN
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale | Lots 109 to 207 | Thursday 04 December 2025 from 6pm
Description
Signed and dated 1885, watercolour
Dimensions
28cm x 23.5 cm (11in x 9.5in)
Provenance
Sotheby’s Gleneagles, Scottish and Sporting Paintings, Drawings and Watercolours, 28 August 1984, lot 678 (as ‘Lady with a Letter’)
Ewan Mundy Fine Art Ltd, Glasgow and by descent to the present owners
Footnote
After three years in France, John Lavery came back to Glasgow with canvases depicting the daily life of the rural commune of Grez-sur-Loing. Having left a city in the doldrums in 1881, that to which he returned was booming once more and he quickly realised that the life and leisure pursuits of its wealthy middle class opened up more exciting possibilities than rustic subjects drawn from landscape.
There was also greater tolerance for a range of media in the west of Scotland. Less respected in France than in Britain, watercolour painting, led by his friends Joseph Crawhall, Arthur Melville and Edward Arthur Walton, was an important art form attracting critical attention. It was one that he quickly mastered for major works such as A Rally 1885 (Glasgow Museums acc.no.1916).
Au Bal, as its title suggests, looks back to the fashionable beau monde of the Third Republic. Two years earlier, a large oil, After the Dance (Private Collection), had addressed a similar subject, showing a young woman holding a fan and a dance card (see Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery, A Painter and his World, Atelier Books, Edinburgh, 2010, illustrated p.20).
He would tackle the subject again in a memorable sequence of sketches four years later, at the Grand Costume Ball in Glasgow, when he stood with his easel at the edge of the dance floor. Here, however, in a moment of repose, he isolates a young unidentified model whose face we recognize from other works of 1885.
We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for writing this catalogue entry.
