A commission from Geoffrey Birkbeck RBA

Shortly after his marriage to Dora Ethel Wilson at Brompton Oratory on 26 July 1904, the wealthy East Anglian watercolour painter, Geoffrey Birkbeck RBA, commissioned Lavery to paint his wife’s portrait.(1) Due to the artist’s busy schedule and Mrs Birkbeck’s first pregnancy, the work is unlikely to have been completed until the second half of the following year, missing the spring exhibition season.(2) With the arrival of the Birkbecks’ second child in February 1907, and Lavery’s extended stays in Morocco between 1906 and 1908, the painting, remained unseen by the public. It was then submitted to the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in January 1909, where it was enthusiastically received.

Although he had recently resigned from the vice-presidency of this society after ten years, Lavery remained loyal to its objectives. Back in 1898 he was a prime mover in what had been a major intervention in the London art world, and since then had served under James McNeill Whistler and Auguste Rodin, both of whom were largely absentee-figurehead Presidents. During these years however, Lavery’s own reputation grew with honours from foreign academies and significant purchases for national museums in Europe, America and British colonial collections. By 1904 for instance, though Irish, he was the only living ‘English School’ painter with two prestigious acquisitions by the French state. Despite consistent press approval, his role was a stumbling block to his acceptance by the Royal Academy in Britain – a situation that, in 1909, took two further years to rectify.

Meanwhile, visitors to the 1909 International saw two striking Laverys – the Mrs Edward Vulliamy and the present work (Figs 1 & 2).

A Ray of Sunshine

Both, for different reasons, caught the attention of critics. The former was seen as a bravura performance in which the figure was laid on a primed ‘almost untouched’ canvas in a single sitting without revision, while in the smaller, more intimate work, the personality of a striking individual shone forth - ‘like a ray of sunshine in the midst of the depressing gloom’.(3) In an exhibition containing notable works by William Orpen, Augustus John, James Pryde and Charles Haslewood Shannon, such was Lavery’s picture’s command of the wall space that others nearby suffered in comparison.(4) Scale, in other words, was no impediment, and many preferred the smaller of Lavery’s works, commending what was seen as his earlier more Whistlerian style. The Northern Whig concluded that Mrs Geoffrey Birkbeck ‘with its easy naturalness will by many be considered the best portrait in the exhibition’.(5)  

For contemporary critics, the painting’s appeal resulted from its splendid capturing of an animated personality. Lavery, from his earliest days prided himself on his ability to capture figure movement. Rather than resorting to static, conventional face-painting in the present instance, he concentrates upon conveying the instant when a lively young woman throws a glance back at the spectator. She, as one critic admitted, was spontaneous and reactive. ‘Mr John Lavery’, said The Morning Post, ‘has never been happier than in his portrait of “Mrs Geoffrey Birkbeck”, a work to which it is not invidious to say that the charming model must have unconsciously contributed a great deal …’(6) The artist’s profound sense of the motility in form is now applied to the face. A conversation continues as Mrs Birkbeck turns away. Has she returned from the street, or is she about to leave? Has she removed her glove or is she about to wear it? What has been said to provoke her smile? There was indeed, an ‘easy naturalness’ in the painting that most studio set-pieces lacked.

Lavery and Whistler

For one commentator there remained an echo of Whistler, but it was a throwaway line that was not pursued. In the recesses of the mind’s image bank, Lavery would likely have stored Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune – Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell, 1882-5, (fig 3) one of the paintings of his youth that he would have studied when in Alexander Reid’s stock in his Glasgow gallery between 1892 and 1895.

Here was an appealing harmony in blacks giving the impression of a figure retreating into the darkness but looking back to invite the spectator to follow. The heal of her shoe – her brodequin jaune - was somehow significant, as when shown in Paris a French wag concluded, elle entre dans la cave de Watteau – suggesting that ‘Lady Archie’ was faux-eighteenth century and a courtesan to boot.

There was nothing of this in Mrs Birkbeck’s backward glance; no tilt of the head in a lady so prominently displaying her wedding ring (figs 4&5).

The Paris Salon, 1909

When it appeared at the Salon in Paris in May 1909, Lavery’s work was surrounded by those of belle époque contemporaries such as Jacques-Émile Blanche and Giovanni Boldini, as well as their younger vulgarian protégés such as Antonio de la Gándara and Henry Caro-Delvaille - all clamouring for attention. The latter was exhibiting his Mme Simone (fig 6) whose vampish looks provoked scorn and admiration in equal measures: ‘one says “lady”, but one might almost say “sirène”,’ wrote The Westminster Gazette correspondent.

In this clashing mélange it was a relief to turn to Lavery. The same writer, latched on to his aesthetic discretion, noting that his lady ‘looking over her shoulder and smiling at the visitors … will help [the artist’s] reputation as a portrait painter of no mean value’.(7)

By 1909 he needed no help. He could instantly respond to the magnetism of personality and with a captivating smile and the glint of a ring, could distance himself from both Whistler and from his flashy younger rivals.

Kenneth McConkey

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Auction Details

Thursday 10 July 2025, 10.30am BST
Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE

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VIEWING IN LONDON (HIGHLIGHTS)
Sunday 27 June: 10am–4pm
Monday 30 June: 10am–4pm
Tuesday 1 July: 10am–4pm

VIEWING IN NEWBURY (FULL SALE)
Sunday 6 July: 10am-3pm
Monday 7 July: 10am-4pm
Tuesday 8 July: 10am-4pm
Wednesday 9 July: 10am-4pm

FURTHER INFORMATION: 
General enquiries: + 44 (0) 1635 553 553 | pictures@dreweatts.com
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Provenance

The sitter and thence by descent to her son, Edmund J. Birkbeck, 1954
Private Collection, UK (a bequest from the above in 1984)
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 10 December 2019, lot 33

Exhibited

London, New Gallery, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, 1909, no. 160
Paris, Salon, Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, 1909, no.705 (illustrated on page 51 of the catalogue)

Notes

(1) Dora Ethel Wilson (1873-1925) was the daughter of James Christopher Wilson of 23 Wilton Crescent, Belgravia. Birkbeck (1875-1954) of Stoke Holy Cross, near Norwich, a Liberal Party supporter, was President of the Gladstone Club and the Catholic League, and at the time of his marriage, a member of the Norwich Woodpecker Art Club, in whose exhibitions he regularly exhibited. He also showed regularly in London with the Royal Society of British Artists. Described locally as a ‘bold and skilful craftsman’, (Norwich News, 28 October 1905, p. 13) he exhibited paintings from his travels in France and Italy. In 1906 he wrote and illustrated Old Norfolk Houses. Local press reports also confirm that following their marriage Dora Birkbeck was instantly accepted in Norwich society. Five years after her death, her husband remarried Maud Gundreda Barret, sister of the Earl of Cavan.

(2) The Birkbecks’ daughter, Theodora Clare, was born on 11 June 1905. 

(3) ‘The New Gallery, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers’, The Morning Post, 9 January 1909, p. 3.

(4) ‘Rodin at the New Gallery …’, Daily Express, 9 January 1909, p. 5

(5) ‘Our London Letter’, The Northern Whig, 9 January 1909, p. 7. 

(6) As note 3.

(7) Claire de Pratz, ‘Pictures in Paris; The Two Salons’, Westminster Gazette, 10 May 1909, p. 2.

Literature

'The New Gallery, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers', The Morning Post, 9 January 1909, p. 3
'Landscapes and Portraits', Evening Standard, 9 January 1909, p. 5
'International Society', Manchester Courier, 9 January 1909
'Our London Letter', The Northern Whig, 9 January 1909, p.7
'Rodin at the New Gallery ...', Daily Express, 9 January 1909, p.5
'The New Gallery', Morning Advertiser, 9 January 1909, p.3
'The International Society', Westminster Gazette, 11 January 1909, p.3
'Society of Painters and Gravers', Belfast Telegraph, 12 January 1909, p.4
Martin Hardie, 'The World of Art, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers,' Queen, 23 January 1909, p. 168
'Art Notes', Truth, 9 January 1909, p.214
'The Paris New Salon', The Scotsman, 14 April 1909, p. 8
Claire de Pratz, 'Pictures in Paris; The Two Salons', Westminster Gazette, 10 May 1909, p.2