Live Auction 7719The Irish and Sporting Art Sale
Christie’s roundel
Lot 63

Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A. (1871-1957)

The Fool Chase

Closed8 May 2009

Price Realised

GBP 79,250

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Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A. (1871-1957)
The Fool Chase
signed 'JACK B/YEATS' (lower right) and inscribed twice 'The Fool Chase' (on the reverse and on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
14 x 18 in. (35.5 x 45.8 cm.)
Painted in 1942.

Purchased by Terence de Vere White at the 1944 exhibition.
Arland Ussher, 1945.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 26 December 1969, lot 94.
with Victor Waddington, London.
Private collection, Dublin, 1969.
Private collection, Switzerland, 1970.

Specialist note

Pyle comments, 'A clown with a banjo is pursued by a man in fancy cavalier dress, holding a musket, in an open field, perhaps a fairground. They are watched from a distance by some other people.

The landscape is recognisably an Irish one, with a cottage and a castle. Otherwise the mood is one of fantasy, of a lively and merry character' (Pyle, loc. cit).