Description
The Croquet Party
by Sir John Lavery
Paper Size: 32 x 18 ins / 81 x 46 cm
Image Size: 28 x 14 ins / 71 x 35 cm
Superior Edition Gouttelette Print
Each print is hand numbered, accompanied by a certificate signed by the Master Printer and is numbered to match the print. The editions are limited to 1880 copies.
This painting was produced between 1890 and 1893 with Lavery relishing his sweeping strokes of green and his Impressionistic spatter of white blobs to build a seemingly detailed coastline in the distance. The original was sold in 2022 for almost £3m and is one of the artist`s most iconic pictures alongside other pastimes such as `The Tennis Party`. `The Croquet Party` shows three elegantly dressed members of the well-to-do Clarke family enjoying a game of croquet in late Spring. One of the women crouches-down to analyse the game while another looks on, her expression a mixture of triumph and amusement suggesting that she has found a way to outmanoeuvre her opponents. In the background as the sun casts shadows across the green, some of the spectators raise their scarlet and white parasols.
Born in 1856, Lavery`s beginnings were turbulent. He was four when his father, a Belfast publican and his mother died, so he was brought-up by relations. His first job was as a photographer`s re-toucher in Glasgow, fitting in classes at the Haldane Academy of Art, which became Glasgow School of Art. Always internationally minded, he studied for three years in Paris and had a picture hung in the Salon alongside Manet`s `Bar at the Folies Bergere`. On his return, he was commissioned by a Glasgow corporation to paint the state visit of Queen Victoria and thus he wrote `At one swoop, I was ushered into royal circles
