Mr W B Yeats Presenting Mr George Moore to the Queen of the Fairies

Artist Sir Max Beerbohm (1872 - 1956)

Date1904

MediumInk on paper

Dimensions32.1 x 19.9 cm

ClassificationsDrawings

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Lane Gift, 1912. © The Estate of Max Beerbohm.

Object number71

DescriptionMax Beerbohm was a famous essayist and caricaturist. He described caricature as ‘the delicious art of exaggerating’ while also attempting to capture the soul of the person being portrayed. Rather than draw from life, Beerbohm preferred to stare at a person and draw them at a later point having absorbed their personality and prominent characteristics. George Moore (1852-1933), novelist, art critic and dramatist, came from a landed Catholic family in Co. Mayo. He had hoped to pursue a career as an artist and met many of the key figures in nineteenth century French art including Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet. He absorbed the lessons of French realism and was particularly interested in the works of the writer Emile Zola. Upon his return to Ireland Moore worked closely alongside Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats in the formation of the Irish Literary Theatre. This drawing, along with twenty other Max Beerbohm caricatures, was featured in a book called 'The Poets Corner', published in 1904. Here Beerbohm satirises the writer George Moore’s introduction into the Irish literary movement. Yeats’ left hand gestures towards a fairy, a reference to Yeats’s fascination with ancient Irish myth and folklore. On the book shelf in the drawing here, Beerbohm playfully suggests the diverse interests of Moore and Yeats by including titles such as ‘Shortcuts to Mysticism’ and ‘Realism: its cause and cure.’ (JO'D)

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