Irish Arts Review

'Yeats Souvenirs' Clues to a Lost Portrait by J. B. YeatsAuthor(s): Ruth BartonSource: Irish Arts Review Yearbook, Vol. 12 (1996), pp. 96-97Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20492886 .

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'YEATS SOUVENIRS! CLUES TO A LOST PORTRAIT BY J B YEATS

The cardboard box had spent years in closets and attics, but

the label was still clear: 'Yeats Souvenirs.' It was part of the inheri tance which Marie (Mieze)

Rosenhaupt, nee Freudenthal, had left her son Hans, which had in turn passed to Hans's widow,

Maureen Rosenhaupt. It contained a collection of first editions and Abbey Theatre playbills, but its unique contents were these: two pencil portraits by John Butler Yeats (one of W B Yeats, the other almost certainly of Marie Freudenthal), correspondence to

Marie Freudenthal from John Butler Yeats, Lily and Elizabeth C (Lollie) Yeats, and an autograph book with short pieces by

William Butler Yeats, A E (George Russell), Padraic Colum and many actors and actresses of the Abbey Theatre. The letters refer frequently to a portrait that John Butler Yeats painted of

Marie Freudenthal in 1905, but, to date, Mrs Rosenhaupt has been unable to find any leads conceming the2portrait's present whereabouts or what may have happened to it.

Marie Freudenthal, daughter of Jacob Freudenthal, professor of philosophy at Breslau, probably met Lily and Lollie Yeats when they visited Germany early in the 1900s. In the spring of 1905, Miss Freudenthal stayed for almost two months with the

Yeats family in Dublin. While she was there, John Butler Yeats started painting her portrait. In the autograph book, Alfred K

Moe, American Consul, has sketched John Butler Yeats painting the portrait of Freudenthal. The sketch is dated 17 June '05, and in the sketch the portrait appears almost finished. On a blank page facing Moe's sketch, in Marie Freudenthal Rosenhaupt's

handwriting, is this inscription: Alfred K Moe (Amerik-Konsul (?) in Dubln) zeichnet John B Yeats, den Vater des Dichters W B Yeats, wahrend er Frl. Freudenthal portratiert. Dies Portrat wurde als 'Lady in Blue' in Dublin ausgestellt u.

dann Frl. Fr. geschenkt. Sie wird es nach Amerika mitbringen. (Alfred K

Moe (American Consul? in Dublin), draws John B Yeats, father of the poet W B Yeats, while he paints the portrait of Fraulein Freudenthal. This portrait was exhibited in Dublin as 'Lady in Blue,' then presented to Frl. Fr. She will bring it with

her to America. ) Maureen Rosenhaupt believes that the note regarding the por

trait could not have been added to the autograph book until shortly before World War II when Marie Freudenthal and her husband left Nazi Germany. At no time before that had they considered emigrating from Germany to America. William

Murphy, author of Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats (1839-1922), says that some of the correspondence of Lily Yeats indicates that Marie Freudenthal and her husband Heinrich

Rosenhaupt's coming as refugees fro i Germany 'aroused Lily's ire against Hitler and all he stood for.' So far as Mrs Rosenhaupt has been able to determine, the note in the autograph book is the last thing her family knows about the portrait.

The two longest letters in the souvenir box give information about the portrait. On March 7, 1906, Lily wrote a chatty letter to Marie in which she comments: 'Your portrait has gone to the

Dublin Academy and when it comes away I will see that it is sent off to you.' In a letter dated 21 March 1906, Lily wrote:

Ruth Barton sifts through the contents of a box of Yeats

memorabilia

, :' , .?

1. John Butler YEATS (1839-1922): Pencil sketch of W B Yeats, (Rosenhaupt Collection). Signed by W B Yeats and dated May 1905. Inscribed: The

poet talking to Fraulein Freudenthal. Marie Freudenthal, who had probably met Lily and Lollie

Yeats when they visited Germany in the early 1900s, stayed with the Yeats family in Dublin in

the spring of 1905.

2. John Butler YEATS: Pencil sketch of a young woman, probably Marie Freudenthal. Signed and

dated May 1905. (Rosenhaupt Collection). Marie Freudenthal's collection of Yeats memorabilia,

which dates from her visit to Dublin in 1905, was bequeathed to her son, Hans, whose widow has

shared it with the author.

AtA

3. John Butler YEATs: Autograph letter with a pen and ink sketch of his portrait of Marie Freudenthal.

Dated 28 October 1906, (Rosenhaupt Collection). This sketch records the now lost oil portrait which

at the time this letter was written was still unfin ished. After being exhibited at the RHA in 1906, it

was sent to the sitter and was probably taken by her to America shortly before the second World War.

96 IRISH ARTS REVIEW

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'YEATS SOUVENIRS': CLUES TO A LOST PORTRAIT BY J B YEATS

The two longest letters in the souvenir box give information about the portrait. On March 7, 1906, Lily

wrote a chatty letter to Marie in which she comments: 'Your portrait has gone to the Dublin Academy and

when it comes away I will see that it is sent off to you.'

In a letter dated 21 March 1906, Lily wrote: 'Your por trait looks very well in the academy I hear, it only

opened on Monday.' J B Yeats was not through with the portrait, however. In a long letter dated 28 October 1906, he urges Marie to return to Dublin:

Except that I have tried to finish the shoulders of the dress I have not done anything to your portrait - of course without (sic) I do not dare to touch the face.

Now I would like very much to finish it and send it to

you - [pen sketch of the portrait] and to enable me to

do this properly you ought to come back here and stay a

few weeks. I of course would like this very much even if

there was no portrait in question, and Lily tells me to

tell you that she would like greatly to see you here again.5

Later he return to the portrait: 'I have been doing a

lot of portraits and am very much improved in power of painting. My first few touches will transform your por trait as if I was a magician.' Nothing in the correspon

dence suggests that Marie Freudenthal did return to Dublin, but the note across the page from Moe's sketch of J B Yeats shows that she did receive the portrait.

The Rosenhaupt collection contains a number of pieces printed by the Dun Emer Press - bookmarks, invi tations, postcards. Several present art by Jack B Yeats: an invitation to a private showing of 'Sketches of Life in

the West of Ireland,' (scene showing a man on a wagon

moving along beach), a bookmark for John Quinn, and a postcard of a young man on crutches, bearing the hand

written quotation: 'For the World's more full of sorrow / Than you can understand.' It is signed W B Yeats.

Certainly Marie Freudenthal's souvenirs indicate a busy time while she was in Dublin. She kept playbills for Lady Gregory's Kincora, Yeats's The King's Threshold and for a double bill, Yeats's The Hour Glass, A Morality with Padraic Colum's The Land. Many of the entries in Freudenthal's autograph book were made by the actors, and the passages they put in the book are often variations on something in one of the plays. Padraic Colum wrote out his 'Woman of the Roads' from

Wild Earth, and G W Russell (AE) wrote out and illustrated his 'Winds of Angus.' W B Yeats wrote a slight adaptation from 'To

a Rose upon the Rood of Time:' 'To find in foolish things that live a day / Eternal Beauty wandering on her way.' Appropriately enough, John Butler Yeats has the last entry in the autograph book: 'Great is the worth of prudence Great also the cost - therefore - carpe diem.'

DR RUTH BARTON lectures in the Department of English, Colorado CoUege, Colrado Sprng.

j T:

~~~~- Xj

4. Alfred K MOE: Pencil sketch of J B Yeats painting Manie Freudenthal's portrait. Signed and dated 17June 05. From an autograph book. (Rosenhaupt Collection). Moe was the American

Consul in Dublin.

1. Hans Rosenhaupt was for many years president of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation,

Princeton, N.J., USA.

2. Anyone who knows anything about the portrait,

especially any information about its location fol

lowing World War II, should contact Professor

Ruth Barton, The Colorado College, Colorado

Springs, CO 80903; telephone 1 719 389 6503; Fax 1719 289 6837.

3. John O'Grady, University College Dublin,

points out that the catalogue of the 1906 Royal Hibernian Academy exhibition, lists the work as

'Portrait of Fraulein Frendenhall (sic.)' I am

indebted to Professor Thomas W Ross for the

translation.

4. Ltr William Murphy to Maureen Rosenhaupt,

January 15,1993. 5.1 am grateful to William Murphy for his help

deciphering J B Yeats's handwriting

97

IRISH ARTS REVIEW

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