5 by 6.50in. (12.7 by 16.5cm)

Title: ILLUSTRATION TO 'RHYMES OF THE GITANOS', 1908
Note: This drawing is the original artwork made by Jack B. Yeats for reproduction on the second page of A Broadside, December 1908. A Broadside was produced monthly by Yeats's sisters, Lily and Lollie, at the Cuala Press in Churchtown from 1908 to 1915. Each issue features the text of two poems by contemporary writers or anonymous ballads, chosen by Jack Yeats. Each Broadside is illustrated by three images, all by Jack, which were made in Indian ink that could be easily reproduced as line block prints and then hand-coloured. The underlying pencil lines are still visible in this drawing. The Rhymes of the Gitanos illustrates an apparent translation of a Romany ballad by the English linguist and writer, George Borrow (1808-1881). Borrow is best known for his fictionalised accounts of gypsy life and culture, notably Lavengro (1851) and the Romany Rye (1857). His interest in Romany culture was apparently inspired by a visit to a gypsy encampment near Norwich which was followed by a lifetime of extensive travel and research. In Yeats's drawing a young gypsy girl listens enthralled to her flamboyantly dressed companion. The girl's elongated pose with arms drawn down and head lifted with eyes wide with wonder convey the power of the performance. The musician holds a bow and box fiddle in his hands and his mouth is open wide as he sings the outrageous lyrics of Burrow's song. This tells of the adventures and woes of a travelling gypsy man who declares: O, I am not of gentle clan, I'm sprung from gypsy tree; And I will be no gentleman; But an Egyptian free…The musician's eyes meet that of his listener, enticing her into a world of fantasy and make believe.The two figures sit in a barrel tent, of the kind used in many of Yeats's paintings of the West of Ireland. They appear to be cocooned from the world around them, surrounded by the dark black of the interior. Beneath their feet are piles of leather belts, buckles and saddles, the detritus of the gypsy's trade. To the left the rolling waves of the ocean with a galleon at sail on the horizon evoke the adventure and exoticism of the song and of the imaginative life of the vagrant. Yeats presents a romantic view of nomadic life in which material hardship is recompensed by creative and social freedom. Nora McGuinness has linked the words and imagery of A Broadside to wider nationalist feelings of the early 20th century in which the figures' rejection of the trammels of ordinary life have a distinctively subversive intention. (1) Yeats's use of simple hatching lines to depict the shadow in the brim of the singer's hat, on the base of the fiddle and on the side of the tent are rudimentary and decorative. This deceptively basic method of drawing signifies the moral authenticity of the poem and the lifestyle extolled by the image. It conjures up the crude but genuine imagery of the ballad sheets of earlier centuries. The work was acquired by the artist, Gerard Dillon, from the Dawson Gallery in 1971. Dr Róisín KennedyJuly 2022Footnote:1. Nora McGuinness, The Literary Universe of Jack B. Yeats, Catholic University of America Press, 1992, p.37
Frame dimensions: 15.5 by 17in. (39.4 by 43.2cm)

Slight stain in margin lower centre. Rubbing in the margin lower right. Otherwise very good condition.

Indian ink on card

signed with monogram lower right