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• The Green Hammock

• Sir John Lavery

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• circa 1905
  Oil on canvas-board
  Private collection.
  
  In 1884, when he was working at the artists' colony at Grez-sur-Loing near Fontainebleau, the young John Lavery painted an unknown woman resting in a hammock slung between trees close to the river. While the 'lilies and languors' of the Pre-Raphaelites were rigorously excluded from his work, the picture nevertheless captured that sense of dolce far niente, of beautiful youth and summer's luxuriance. It was a theme borrowed from James Tissot and Edward John Gregory that remained with him for the rest of his life.
  
  Although a number of other less successful sketches of hammocks were painted after his return to Glasgow, Lavery's most important essays on the subject began around 1902 and involved his British and German models, Nora Johnson and Mary Auras. Nora for instance posed for a large composition, 65 x 76? inches, known initially as The Hammock, circa 1903, and this was sold in 1906 to the Mannheim Kunsthalle (now unlocated).
  
  De-accessioned after the Great War, it has since disappeared, but from a surviving illustration, it shows a young woman dressed in white, reading a book by the side of the pond at Ranelagh Gardens, one of Lavery's favourite London haunts in the early years of the century. Seen in profile, Nora's head and shoulders are placed on the left of the picture, as in a group of sketches of which the present is the best surviving example. These were mostly painted on standard 10 x 14 inch canvas-boards - as in the present case while a slightly larger 12 x 14 inch version, sold to James Staats Forbes while Lavery was still working on the Mannheim canvas, was shown at Hugh Lane's epoch-making exhibition of Irish Art at the Guildhall Art Gallery in June 1904. This also has disappeared.
  
  Subsequently the matter became more complicated, because by the time of the Mannheim sale, the picture's title had changed and it was now known as The Green Hammock. This was to differentiate it from a second large canvas for which Mary initially posed, and which was titled The Red Hammock. Here the model, ranged to the right of the picture, has discarded her book and holds a scarlet parasol. This too was planned in a series of small oil sketches and the large version completed in 1906 was reworked in the 1920s with Lavery's wife, Hazel, as model and donated to the city of Belfast in 1929. When it fell into disrepair, the painter removed it from the city's collection and painted a new version in the late 1930s, using his then current model, Lillian Millar.
  
  While the full story of these pictures remains to be told, it is clear that in the years following Whistler's death, Lavery developed a profound interest in colour harmonies - the 'Hammock' confections being essays in green and red. But where the older artist's aestheticism led him back to the lotus land of pale Tanagra maidens, Lavery's sun-speckled series looked to the resonant palette of Impressionism and its exoticism is expressed in the rich tapestry drape on which the model reclines. The remarkable spontaneity of the present sketch conveys something of the grande luxe of Fragonard and Boucher.
  
  William Webb to whom The Green Hammock was presented, was the solicitor to the International Society of Sculptors and Gravers (see lot 181). Lavery served as Vice-President of the society under successive figurehead presidents, Whistler and Rodin. As its effective manager, he was often in contact with Webb and their letters reveal a cordial relationship that had by 1910, developed into a close friendship.

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Average Rating: Currently rated 5.00, based on 1 reviews.

• 
Mitzi from United States.
• It looks great. Thank you!

Other paintings by Sir John Lavery:

Tennis at Trent Park

The Madonna of the Lakes (Center Panel)

Portrait of Lady Lavery as Kathleen Ni Houlihan

Spring