Book Description
John Butler Yeats (1839-1922) was an Irish portrait painter and the father of the poet William Butler Yeats and the painter Jack Butler Yeats. John Quinn (1870-1924) was a corporation lawyer in New York City, and a noted private collector and patron of the arts. Yeats visited New York City in December 1907, remaining there, with Quinn's assistance, until his death in 1922. The item, written and drawn in pen and ink, is a brief autograph letter signed J.B. Yeats to “My dear Quinn,” describing the large sketch drawn above as “my reminiscence of last night’s dinner - you are not very like, but the other two are not bad.” From left to right, the dinner circle consists of Yeats, Quinn and a woman, showing the back of a man in the foreground, with a man's profile to the side crossed out. An additional small self-portrait is drawn below his signature and the date. What appear to be four lines of verse on the other side are also crossed out.
