Sir John Lavery R.A., R.S.A., R.H.A. (1856-1941)
Bull fight
signed and dated 'J. Lavery 92' (lower right)
oil on panel
13 x 21.6 cm. (5 1/8 x 8 1/2 in.)
Footnotes:
Provenance
Private Collection, U.K.

In 1892 Lavery travelled back from Tangier through Spain with fellow painter Alexander Mann, who noted in letters dated in April and May of that year that despite having a heavy cold, Lavery attended a number of bullfights. It is likely that his interest in this subject was first ignited by close friend Joseph Crawhall's bullfight scenes painted at Algeciras, which were subsequently shown at the Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours exhibition in Glasgow in 1889.

Lavery responds to the scene as an intriguing subject foremost – he found the brutality of the sport unsettling – later commenting to Walter Shaw Sparrow that: 'a curious thing happens when an artist sits down before his subject; material things vanish, only colour and its plots remain, and they look visionary. I have never seen a bullfight, though I have been present at twelve in Madrid and Seville. I don't think I could watch a bullfight, as I am very fond of horses; it is the moving colour that attracts me at this cruel sport' (Walter Shaw Sparrow, John Lavery and his Work, London: Kegan Paul, Trubner, Trench and Co, 1912, p.98).

In the present lot, Lavery manages to depict the whole scene quickly and with great skill, captured en plein air by the side of the bullring. Generous brushstrokes convey the expanse of sand filling the ring, with a stripe of orange demarcating the perimeter, beneath a cloudless blue sky. Flashes of colour – the matador's robes in bright green, small accents of red – punctuate the scene. Lavery captures movement with great ease, the matador with flowing purple cape striding into the ring suggested with just a few strokes, and contrasting to the solid, unmoving stance of the bull. Painted on a small scale, this study is expertly executed, with a flourish which echoes that of the scene it describes.

We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.