About this artwork

This caricature shows E.A. Walton in fancy dress at the Grand Costume Ball organized by the Glasgow Art Club on 29 November 1889. It shows him dressed as one of his idols, the Japanese printmaker Hokusai (1760–1849). The strange motif on the floor behind him represents Whistler’s butterfly signature. Walton’s fiancée, Helen Law, is dressed up in a gold coloured costume decorated with these emblematic butterflies. A group photograph by James Craig Annan, taken on the night of the Ball, shows the Glasgow Boys dressed in fancy costume, posing in a studio setting in the guise of old master painters. Lavery also made an oil sketch of Walton and Helen Law on the night of the Ball and presented it to them as a gift for their engagement, which they had announced earlier that evening.

Updated before 2020

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Sir James Guthrie

Sir James Guthrie