SIR JOHN LAVERY
British, 1856–1941
Jasmin
Signed J. Lavery; also signed, inscribed and dated on the reverse JASMIN/By JOHN LAVERY/5 CROMWELL PLACE/LONDON/FEZ. 1920
Oil on canvas
30 x 25 inches (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
Framed: 38¼ x 33 inches (97 x 84 cm)
Lavery made his second trip to Fez in early April 1920 “as part of a longer tour of Morocco that took in Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakech,” writes Kenneth McConkey. "His vivid memories of this ancient apex of trade routes across the Maghreb stretched back to 1906 when with the writer R. B. Cunninghame Graham and Walter Harris, The Times resident correspondent, Lavery made his first expedition to Fez. While this earlier expedition had to be conducted on horseback over terrain controlled by brigands, the second excursion, in 1920, was possibly by car on roads recently laid by German prisoners-of-war. On April 3, 1920, Lavery wrote to his daughter Eileen from Casablanca that they were bound for Fez the following day. There he and his wife, Hazel, his stepdaughter Alice, and a friend, Nora Clark-Kerr, would stay at a house loaned to them by El Menebhi, ‘a rich Moor’, whose portrait Lavery had painted. Moroccan hospitality was legendary, and from the moment of their arrival they were treated royally by dozens of richly attired servants. It is likely that from among this group he persuaded ‘Jasmin’ to sit for him.”
A study for the present work, Jasmin (Aida), oil on panel, 14¼ x 10¼ inches (36.5 x 26.2 cm), was presented by Lavery to his dentist, Dr. Conrad Ackner (1880-1975), and sold at Bonhams, London on May 29, 2013. We are grateful to Kenneth McConkey for his assistance in the cataloguing of this work.
Provenance
The Fine Art Society, London 1970s
Sale, Christie’s, New York, January 24, 1980, lot 326, illustrated
Schweitzer Galleries, New York
Private collection, acquired from the above
Sale, Bonhams, London, June 30, 2021, lot 21, illustrated
Private collection, New York, acquired from the above
$125,000