Sir John Lavery RA RSA RHA

(Irish, 1856-1941)

A 'Mary Stuart' Waitress (Thoughts Afar) 32 x 24.5 cm. (12 5/8 x 9 5/8 in.)

Footnotes

Exhibited
Glasgow, Craibe Angus Gallery, Pictures and Sketches of the International Exhibition, October 1888, n.no.

There were twenty-eight putative sixteenth century portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots at the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1888. According to John Lavery, they were all so different that there was no evidence of any 'having been painted from life by a really competent artist'.¹ These relics were nevertheless of great interest to the artist who was currently exhibiting Dawn after the Battle of Langside, (Private Collection) a vivid recreation of the morning after the rout of Mary's forces. He had done his research and was himself the owner of one of the many possible 'Mary Stuart' portraits.² The issue was topical in 1888 because not only did the display at the Bishop's Castle in the Glasgow exhibition contain other 'Mary Stuart' mementoes – a slipper, a crucifix, some needlepoint and letters – but the organizers had elected to dress the waitresses in the nearby Castle tearooms in costumes commemorating the decoys she is reputed to have used in her flight from the forces of Queen Elizabeth.³ These brave ladies-in-waiting intended to distract and delay the English forces pursuing Mary, and their legendary efforts were the stuff of George Whyte-Melville's popular 'romance of Holyrood', The Queen's Maries.⁴

On his numerous visits to study the dubious ancient portraits, Lavery repaired to the tearoom and these young waitresses figure in a number of his oil sketches. On two occasions he appears to have persuaded one of the 'Mary Stuarts' to pose for a portrait sketch. One of these – One of the Marys – is known from a reproduction in The Scottish Art Review.⁵ The appearance here of the second, marks an exciting rediscovery. An unusual profile portrait, it shows two further 'Marys' seated in the background, with a glimpse of one of the minarets of the huge temporary building erected on the far side of the Kelvin to house the main exhibition. 'Bagdad (sic) by Kelvinside' it was dubbed by the Illustrated London News.⁶

In October 1888, a month before it closed, Lavery showed fifty of his oil sketches of the temporary halls, kiosks and cafés at the International, in Craibe Angus's gallery at 159 Queen Street, Glasgow. In addition to the crowds of visitors, he also singled out several exhibitors, attendants and shop assistants for swift portrait sketches. For obvious reasons however, the 'Mary Stuarts', echoing his fascination with the glamorous Scottish queen, were particular favourites. Critics were amazed at the variety of these 'impressions'. 'Even in the slightest ...he is never weak', said The Bailie, while The Glasgow Herald reporter who visited the gallery expecting 'fugitive pieces, pen-and-ink sketches ... the record of which requires the minimum artistic labour', was pleasantly surprised when he found 'completed pictures' and not 'hasty memorials'. Noting that Lavery was the first 'Scotch artist' to receive a gold medal at the Paris Salon, for The Tennis Party, and that he was commissioned by Glasgow Corporation to paint the State Visit of Queen Victoria, he could only conclude his survey of the Craibe Angus show with the comment that 'the glory of a young man is his strength'.⁷

This was expressed in the extraordinary visual range of Lavery's work. His swift eye for a composition, stolen in a moment of calm before the café's customers arrive, has, in the present instance, led him to a pose that he would revisit in later years in the portrait of A Lady in Black: Miss Esther McLaren, first shown at the Salon in 1893. Such International 'impressions', caught in the moment, contain a vitality that is not 'over-refined', but according to the reviewer, would confidently 'come to possess a certain historic interest'. More than that, the study of a contemplative 'Mary Stuart' gives us the vivid sense of a most powerful visual intelligence in the making.

¹ John Lavery, 'On a Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots', The Scottish Art Review, vol 1, no 4, September 1888, p. 87.
² Allegedly by Frederico Zuccaro, this picture survived in Lavery's studio until the time of his death, but has since disappeared. Lavery conducted research on Mary, Queen of Scots by writing to the historian, Joseph Stevenson and studying documents in the antiquarian library of Wylie Guild; see Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery, A Painter and his World, 2010 (Atelier Books), pp. 215-6, note 153.
³ Significantly, Wylie Guild later became one of the planning committee for the Glasgow International Exhibition and may well have been the instigator of the 'Mary Stuart' waitresses.
⁴ George John Whyte-Melville (1821-1878), son of a Fifeshire laird, had a distinguished military career before becoming a novelist, with two dozen books to his name. The Queen's Maries, was published in 1864 (Collins Pocket Classics ed., n.d.).
⁵ The Scottish Art Review, vol 1, no 7, December 1888, p. 181.
⁶ Illustrated London News, 19 May 1888, p. 531.

We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for compiling this catalogue entry.