In 1910, that canvas appeared at the Exhibition of Fair Women at the Grafton Gallery, and a month or two later to my surprise I found it reproduced in a large volume of works by Scottish artists published in Edinburgh, under the title, Modern Scottish Portrait Painters, by Percy Bate.
So much is John Lavery appreciated abroad that his most famous pictures hang in Pittsburg and Philadelphia in the United States; in the Pinakothek, Munich; the National Gallery of Brussels, the Luxembourg in Paris, the Modern Gallery of Venice, the National Gallery of Berlin, although a few have luckily been gleaned by the public galleries of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
It is a curious fact that Mr. Lavery sent six or seven years continuously to the Academy, and six or seven times his pictures were refused. In 1888 the Committee accepted his “Tennis Party”—to his amazement—and actually hung it on the line. It went to Paris, where it gained a gold medal, was then “invited” to Munich, where it was finally bought for the National Gallery. He continued to send to the Academy for a few years, generally without success, but those rejected pictures are now hanging in various National Galleries. Suddenly in 1910 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.
Concerning John Lavery, he told two funny little stories about himself one night when he was dining with me. The Exhibition of Fair Women, in 1908, had been attracting all London.
“A picture of mine was lost there,” he remarked.
“Lost? How?”
“Well, I painted the portrait of a lady, and this picture went to the New Gallery. It was three-quarter length. When its space was allotted it was stood on the floor under the place where it was to hang, but when the moment of hanging came the picture was gone, and what is more, has never been heard of since.”
“That is more than I can say.”
“Why would they take it?”