| Summary: | A symbolic portrait of a golden-haired Gaelic queen or goddess [possibly Medb or Maidbh or Maeve, warrior Queen of Connacht?] in green dress mounted on a white unicorn with jewelled bridle, attended by a page wearing a red cloak, interlacing birds overhead, within a Celtic scroll border, gouache or tempera on vellum, signed lower right with her monogram "MG" [in Gaelic lettering]. In a contemporary finely carved fruitwood tabernacle-style frame with matching Celtic motifs and interlaced birds, [43 x 20 cms including frame]. Maud Gonne was interested in Maeve, warrior Queen of Connacht, whose cattle-raid on Ulster is described in the old-Irish Táin saga and in 1902, Gonne signed a letter to Yeats thus; she also signed herself 'old Medb' when corresponding with Ethel Mannin [MS. Dept., NLI]. She used 'Maidbh' ['Maeve'] as her pen-name in 'Bean na hÉireann', the first nationalist-feminist journal to be produced in Ireland [1908] edited by Helena Molony. According to Prof. Deirdre Toomey the colour palette in this work is close to visions which Maud Gonne describes to Yeats in a letter of December 1898 (in which she describes the 'Initiation of the Spear' from their 'mystical marriage' - see [1994] Gonne-Yeats Letters, 1893-1938, pp. 99-100). From about 1905 onwards Maud Gonne took regular lessons in painting in Paris from Joseph Granié (1861-1915), an artist who worked in a Symboliste idiom. Prof. Toomey believes that as this work at PD 4359 TF is more competent than her mystical marriage sketch [a coloured chalk sketch which the late Anna MacBride White lent to the NLI Yeats exhibition], it could be dated post-1905 (information supplied to the NLI by Prof. Deirdre Toomey, 13 May 2015).
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