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Yeats (William Butler, poet, 1865-1939)

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1p., 8vo, Orchard Hotel, Marble Arch, [London], [pencil inscription by Cecil Harmsworth, "12th November 1926"], on the campaign to return Sir Hugh Lane's pictures to Dublin, "I enclose a couple of copies of our pamphlet on the Lane pictures. I wonder if you could get Lord Rothermere to read it" ? Gregory (Isabella Augusta, Lady) Case for the Return of Sir Hugh Lane's Pictures to Dublin, signed presentation copy from W.B. Yeats to Cecil Harmsworth, first edition, frontispiece, original printed wrappers, margins browned, edges chipped, The Talbot Press, Dublin, 1926(2)

***The struggle by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory for the return of Sir Hugh Lane's pictures to Ireland. Sir Hugh Lane (1875-1915), art dealer and collector tried to find a suitable venue to leave his collection of modern art to the Irish people but was thwarted by a lack of initiative on several occasions. In the end Lane took his pictures back to London but made a codicil to his will making Lady Gregory his sole trustee and stating that the pictures would be returned to Dublin if a suitable building could be found to house the collection. After Lane's death in 1915 (he was drowned on the Lusitania) the British courts refused to recognise the codicil, as having been signed without a witness and the pictures stayed in London, being transferred to the Tate Gallery. Lady Gregory devoted much time and energy in her efforts to overturn this ruling but was unable to change it. Following an agreement between the Irish and British Governments in 1959 and a further agreement in the 1970s, certain of the pictures now reside permanently in Dublin and others alternate between the two cities..

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