EMBROIDERED CLOTHS Closure in 1932

ART Collections Burns Library O’Brien to design Stations of the Cross for Lily to embroider on Irish silk poplin in a fashion reminiscent of the banners she helped the Dun Emer Guild create for Loughrea Cathedral at the turn of the century. In a simi- lar style and probably around the same time, O’Brien also composed a group- ing of three musicians playing lutes and lyres on an Irish hillside, the players wrapped in colourful cloaks and contemplative gazes, with the closing couplet of Yeats’ poem wrapped around them: ‘The proud and careless notes live on/But bless our hands that ebb away.’ Yeats arranged such commissions 1 to supplement his sister’s income, as 2 a thyroid condition sapped the energy she needed to supervise the embroidery section of Cuala Industries, forcing its EMBROIDERED CLOTHS closure in 1932. Yet what inspired O’Brien to design Christian Dupont compares two embroideries illustrating an a second, ‘blackwork’ version of the enigmatic poem by WB Yeats from the collection of Burns Library same couplet for Lily to embroider? The second composition places the at Boston College three musicians on a Tuscan hillside, and the psaltery strummed by the cen- rom Sotheby’s Yeats Family not music is their object’ – neither plain tral figure is clearly modelled on the Collection sale last September, chant nor recitation, but a new form one Dolmetsch designed for Farr, albeit Fwe added a second embroidery of auditory poetics inspired by ancient upside down. executed by Lily Yeats illustrating her bardic traditions. O’Brien spent much of 1933 in Italy, brother’s enigmatic poem The Players At the time, the only visual image to mainly Florence. Did she visit Yeats at Ask for a Blessing on the Psalteries stand in for the displacement of poetry Rapallo, or otherwise obtain his guid- and Themselves to our own Yeats fam- from the page (‘I naturally dislike print ance? Was Yeats missing then his early ily and Cuala Industries collections in and paper,’ Yeats ironically contended muse, who had died during a self-im- Burns Library. in the opening of his lecture) was Farr posed exile, of sorts, in Ceylon in 1917? WB Yeats wrote his choral invoca- herself, with ‘a beautiful stringed instru- Unlikely, perhaps, yet in the preface to 1 LILY YEATS (1866- tion for Florence Farr, one of his early ment upon her knee.’ Decades later, his dramatic verse play, The King of 1949) and ROSE BRIGID GANLY muses, on the eve of their joint perfor- however, some other inspiration led to the Great Clock Tower, printed by his (neé O’BRIEN) HRHA (1909-2002) mance at Clifford’s Inn on 10 June 1902. the creation of not one, but two strik- other sister, Lolly, at the Cuala Press in embroidered threads on green 1934, Yeats recollected the aspirations silk, c. 1929- 1931 29x37cm YEATS ARRANGED SUCH COMMISSIONS TO that lay behind their collaborations. The Provenance: James Jaffe Rare Books, SUPPLEMENT HIS SISTER’S INCOME, AS A THYROID proud and careless notes – the accidents 2015; Whyte’s 26 Nov 2012, Lot 56 CONDITION SAPPED THE ENERGY SHE NEEDED of imperfect art – attain an incongru- Photo: Museum Textile Services ous immortality in Yeats’ poetic vision. 2 LILY YEATS (1866- To introduce their ‘new art’ to London ingly different interpretations of WB So, too, the embroideries produced by 1949) and ROSE BRIGID GANLY audiences, Farr would ‘lilt,’ or rhythmi- Yeats’ tribute to Farr in embroidered fragile hands that would soon ebb away, (neé O’BRIEN) HRHA (1909-2002) cally declaim lyric verses to notes she cloth. Both were designed by the painter but not before Yeats himself. embroidered threads on linen, plucked on a psaltery crafted for her by Brigid O’Brien Ganly for Lily’s needle, This is the fourth in a series of articles on Burns Library c. 1935 38x27cm and its collections that attempts to provide context for Provenance: Arnold Dolmetsch. Yeats would then and both incorporated Yeats’ verse vis- appreciating the work of Irish artists and their reception Sotheby’s London 27 in America. Sept 2017, Lot 144; praise her subtle skill in a programmatic ually – apparently the only times Lily Anne Yeats Photo: Christian Dupont is Burns Librarian and Associate Boston College lecture titled ‘Speaking to the Psaltery,’ would stitch words into her art needle- Media Technology University Librarian for Special Collections at Boston Services in which he explained that ‘poetry and work. In 1929, Yeats commissioned College, Boston USA 54 SPRING 2018 VOLUME 35 | P54.

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