A painting by Sir John Lavery, not seen in public for almost 90 years, has come to light in Canada and will be sold at auction this week.
Mrs Osler, in private family ownership since 1929, has been consigned to Sotheby's art auction in New York on Wednesday with a top valuation of $500,000 (€442,222).
Belfast-born Lavery was the best-known Irish artist of the early 20th century and was renowned throughout the English-speaking world for his portraits of “high-society” figures.
In 1929, during an extended visit to the French Riviera, Lavery was commissioned to paint Mrs Osler, née Janet Winifred Christie, the wife of a Canadian attorney, Henry Smith Osler. The portrait was briefly exhibited in London and then brought back to Canada, where it has remained in the family ever since.
‘Playful rebellion’
The oil-on-canvas, measuring about 29in by 24in, depicts Mrs Osler reclining in opulent splendour in her villa in Cap d’Antibes, the resort between Cannes and Nice.
During the 1920s, wealthy North Americans flocked to the Cote d’Azur. According to a catalogue note for the auction, the area “had long been the haunt of the British aristocracy” but by the 1920s, “this ‘Old World’ was increasingly conquered by new money, and luxurious villas and hotels were under construction around what were once quiet old fishing ports”.
Jonquil O’Reilly, a Sotheby’s art specialist and expert on the history of fashion, said the portrait “sums up the mischievous liberation of the Jazz Age [when] corsets were jettisoned” and “Mrs Osler has fully embraced the spirit of the age. Her hair and dress are both cropped short and, lying cross-legged on the sofa, her pose is one of playful rebellion.”
Highly collectible
Many of Lavery’s paintings are in museums and public art galleries but some are still in private ownership. He is one of the most collected and expensive Irish artists.
Last year, at Sotheby's Irish Sale in London, his curiously named painting Japanese Switzerland, depicting his wife Hazel, Lady Lavery, and stepdaughter Alice in the Swiss Alps, previously on loan to Dublin City Gallery (The Hugh Lane), was the top lot and sold for £509,000 (€693,000).
Mrs Osler will go under the hammer in Sotheby's on Wednesday estimated at $300,000 to $500,000.
