A little girl dances in front of an Irish painting and makes the world happy

This is my favourite photo on the Internet of recent times.

It is my happy picture and even though I have no idea who the little girl is, I have found out what the painting is and where it's from.



It's Irish Painter John Lavery's 1911 painting portrait of Anna Pavlova that she is dancing in front of.

Now housed in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland, the oil painting is of the Russian Ballerina. The National Gallery of Australia  tells us:

The Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (1881–1931) was the most celebrated classical dancer of her time, admired for the poetic quality of her movement. She made her debut as soloist with the Imperial Russian Ballet in 1899, but gained fame when she danced with Nijinsky in Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909.

The Observercritic wrote on 16 April 1911: ‘Mr. Lavery’s portrait of the Russian dancer, Anna Pavlova, caught in a moment of graceful, weightless movement … Her miraculous, feather-like flight, which seems to defy the law of gravitation’.

 

John Lavery was born in Ireland in 1856 and lived in Scotland c.1875-79, England and France 1879-85, Scotland 1885-96, England 1896-1939, with regular visits to North Africa, Ireland from 1939. He died in County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1941.

If you do know anything more about the top photograph, please do let me know below.