View More Videos
Bidding on this item has ended.
Sean Keating
THE WINDOW (1924)
Lot 27
Price Realised:
€110,000
Estimate:
€80,000 - €120,000
Sean Keating PPRHA, HRA, HRSA, 1889-1977
THE WINDOW (1924)
Oil on canvas, 51" x 46" (120.5 x 116.7cm), signed.
Provenance: Aonach Tailteann, Dublin (1924); Exhibition of Modern Art including one hundred works from Paris, Daniel Egan Sal...
Read more
Lot 27
Sean Keating
THE WINDOW (1924)
DVTV Click Here To View Video
Lot 27
Sean Keating
THE WINDOW (1924)
Estimate:
€80,000 - €120,000
Sean Keating PPRHA, HRA, HRSA, 1889-1977
THE WINDOW (1924)
Oil on canvas, 51" x 46" (120.5 x 116.7cm), signed.
Provenance: Aonach Tailteann, Dublin (1924); Exhibition of Modern Art including one hundred works from Paris, Daniel Egan Salon (1926); Helen Hackett Gallery, New York (1929); RHA (1946); Acquired directly from the artist, 1954 and by descent to the present owner.
The Window features Keating's wife, May (nee Walsh) (1895-1965), who was originally from Eadestown in County Kildare. In need of the heat of the sun for her health, May was educated by nuns in Spain. She returned to Dublin, a devout agnostic, in 1916, and met Keating at a local branch of Cuman na nGaedheal. The pair married in the University Church on St Stephen's Green in Dublin in 1919.
They lived for a while in rooms in Woodtown, near Rathfarnham, a bow-ended eighteenth-century house surrounded by large trees that features in Keating's An Allegory (1924), in which May also appears as a mother metaphor cradling the nascent new Ireland.[1] May seated and quietly reading against a non-descript interior was a composition that Keating had perfected in an earlier work titled The Striped Dress (1922), also featuring May, and now in a private collection. The artist initially painted The Window, titling it Sunday Evening, for exhibition in the RHA in 1923, but he changed his mind about showing it. Meanwhile, the revival of the Aonach Tailteann games was the first major sporting and cultural event in Ireland since the Civil War. Held in Croke Park Dublin in August that year, it was hoped that the games and associated arts events would be attractive to tourists from home and abroad and would demonstrate that Ireland and its people were well able to establish a new nation built on the history of old.
One of ten works that Keating exhibited at the event, the large window in the background accentuates May's contemplative pose, a metaphor, perhaps, for the emerging post-civil war nation, and at the same time, alluding to a series of similar work by his mentor, Sir William Orpen.[2]
Dr Eimear O'Connor HRHA, HRUA.
Author Sean Keating: Art, Politics, and Building the Irish Nation
Available from Irish Academic Press, Kildare
.
[1] Originally Woodtown House, then Woodtown, and now known as Woodtown Manor.
[1] Keating's Homage to Hugh Lane, commissioned by Thomas Bodkin in 1919, was awarded a gold medal at the Aonach Tailteann games in 1924.
THE WINDOW (1924)
Oil on canvas, 51" x 46" (120.5 x 116.7cm), signed.
Provenance: Aonach Tailteann, Dublin (1924); Exhibition of Modern Art including one hundred works from Paris, Daniel Egan Salon (1926); Helen Hackett Gallery, New York (1929); RHA (1946); Acquired directly from the artist, 1954 and by descent to the present owner.
The Window features Keating's wife, May (nee Walsh) (1895-1965), who was originally from Eadestown in County Kildare. In need of the heat of the sun for her health, May was educated by nuns in Spain. She returned to Dublin, a devout agnostic, in 1916, and met Keating at a local branch of Cuman na nGaedheal. The pair married in the University Church on St Stephen's Green in Dublin in 1919.
They lived for a while in rooms in Woodtown, near Rathfarnham, a bow-ended eighteenth-century house surrounded by large trees that features in Keating's An Allegory (1924), in which May also appears as a mother metaphor cradling the nascent new Ireland.[1] May seated and quietly reading against a non-descript interior was a composition that Keating had perfected in an earlier work titled The Striped Dress (1922), also featuring May, and now in a private collection. The artist initially painted The Window, titling it Sunday Evening, for exhibition in the RHA in 1923, but he changed his mind about showing it. Meanwhile, the revival of the Aonach Tailteann games was the first major sporting and cultural event in Ireland since the Civil War. Held in Croke Park Dublin in August that year, it was hoped that the games and associated arts events would be attractive to tourists from home and abroad and would demonstrate that Ireland and its people were well able to establish a new nation built on the history of old.
One of ten works that Keating exhibited at the event, the large window in the background accentuates May's contemplative pose, a metaphor, perhaps, for the emerging post-civil war nation, and at the same time, alluding to a series of similar work by his mentor, Sir William Orpen.[2]
Dr Eimear O'Connor HRHA, HRUA.
Author Sean Keating: Art, Politics, and Building the Irish Nation
Available from Irish Academic Press, Kildare
.
[1] Originally Woodtown House, then Woodtown, and now known as Woodtown Manor.
[1] Keating's Homage to Hugh Lane, commissioned by Thomas Bodkin in 1919, was awarded a gold medal at the Aonach Tailteann games in 1924.
- Enquire
- View all lots by this artist
- How bidding works
Please note: You will require a deVeres account in order to bid. Please register via the website. Each lot will close numerically. If there is late bidding the time may be extended which could delay subsequent lots. The lots will start to close from 2.00pm on auction day, closing at 45 second intervals.
PLEASE BID EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT.
In order to allow rival bidders the opportunity to respond to a late bid the following extensions will apply:
IF A BID IS RECEIVED WITHIN THE FINAL 45 SECONDS OF THE COUNTDOWN THE CLOCK WILL RESET TO 60 SECONDS.
At any point you can leave a maximum bid, representing the highest price you are prepared to pay for a particular lot. Bidding only advances when there is competition from a rival bidder. In that case the system bids on your behalf, only up to the maximum if required. All bids are relayed to you be email, along with notification if you have been outbid.
All maximum bids are confidential and not disclosed. The system will endeavor to purchase the lot for you for the least price. Bids are subject to buyer’s premium of 25% (incl vat), with no additional charges.
In the event of a tied bid, the preference will be given to the bid submitted first. The second bidder will receive immediate notification of being outbid.
PLEASE BID EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT.
In order to allow rival bidders the opportunity to respond to a late bid the following extensions will apply:
IF A BID IS RECEIVED WITHIN THE FINAL 45 SECONDS OF THE COUNTDOWN THE CLOCK WILL RESET TO 60 SECONDS.
At any point you can leave a maximum bid, representing the highest price you are prepared to pay for a particular lot. Bidding only advances when there is competition from a rival bidder. In that case the system bids on your behalf, only up to the maximum if required. All bids are relayed to you be email, along with notification if you have been outbid.
All maximum bids are confidential and not disclosed. The system will endeavor to purchase the lot for you for the least price. Bids are subject to buyer’s premium of 25% (incl vat), with no additional charges.
In the event of a tied bid, the preference will be given to the bid submitted first. The second bidder will receive immediate notification of being outbid.
Sign-up to our auction alert
Signup for personalised Irish art recommendations, invitations to viewings and auctions, articles and more.