"Morrissey and the Russian Sailor" ballad.- Yeats (Jack Butler, 1865-1939) John Morrissey, the Irish American politician, and bare-knuckle boxing champion, shown in the ring with the Russian Sailor, pen and black ink with pencil under-drawing, with artist's correction slip to figure at lower centre, signed with initials in the lower right corner, 155 x 115 mm (6 1/4 x 4 1/2 in), under glass, framed, [1911]

Provenance:
Peter O'Toole, Esq.;
Victor Waddington, 25 Cork Street, London;
Prof. Milton McCormick Gatch; thence by descent.

Literature:
Pyle, Hilary, The Different Worlds of Jack B. Yeats: His Cartoons and Illustrations, 1994, no. 1840

Illustrated:
Cuala Press Broadside, March 1911, Number 10, 3rd year

⁂ John Morrissey, known as the "Old Smoke", was an Irish American politician, and bare-knuckle boxing champion and criminal. He was also the hero in a popular Irish ballad called "Morrissey and the Russian Sailor", the subject of the present drawing. The ballad has several variations, but most versions include some phrases that connect the song's hero with the historical Morrissey. However, the main story in the ballad, a prize-fight against a Russian sailor in Tierra del Fuego, does not seem to be historically documented. The present original drawing was reproduced as an illustration on a broadside by E.C. Yeats's Cuala Press, 1911.