Portrait of Lady Lavery as Kathleen Ni Houlihan

John Lavery (Irish, 1856-1941) - Portrait of Lady Lavery as Kathleen Ni Houlihan, 1927 (Oil on canvas. On loan from the Central Bank of Ireland. National Gallery of Ireland) - - In 1927, Lavery agreed to assist the Currency Commission in the design of the first Free State banknotes. Reworking a portrait of his wife Hazel of 1909, he cast her as Kathleen ni Houlihan, the mythical heroine of W.B. Yeats’s play of 1902, and placed her against a view of the lakes of Killarney. The artist later quoted W.T. Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, as saying of the banknotes: ‘Every Irishman, not to mention the foreigner who visits Ireland, will carry one next to his heart.’ - NégyArt (Szingy Books)