First part of Sir Anthony O’Reilly art collection sold

The dispersal of Sir Anthony O’Reilly’s artworks, the most valuable private collection assembled in 20th century Ireland, has begun.

A number of paintings from the collection were sold discreetly at auction in England this week. The vendor was not identified when they went under the hammer in Dreweatts, an auction house at Donnington, near Newbury in Berkshire, but it is understood they were from the O’Reilly collection.

According to the catalogue for the sale, the vendor “wishes to remain anonymous”. But it said the private family collection of 45 paintings and sculptures had been “amassed over a lifetime”and was valued at between £250,000 and £400,000.

The sale presented “buyers with the opportunity to purchase works of art that have been off the market for decades”, it said.

A spokeswoman for the sale said 36 of the 45 lots had been sold for a total of £359,352 (€444,000). They included paintings by leading Irish artists, among them Sir William Orpen, Roderic O’Conor, Louis le Brocquy, Sean Keating, Mary Swanzy and James Arthur O’Connor.

Monet for $24.2m

There were also sketches and watercolours by Jack B Yeats and sculptures by Rowan Gillespie.

The lots offered this week represent only a fraction of the O’Reilly collection.

Sir Anthony bought a painting by French impressionist painter Claude Monet entitled Le Portail (Soleil), one of a series produced by the artist of the facade of Rouen Cathedral in the 1890s, at Sotheby's in New York in 2000 for $24.2 million.

His collection also included a bronze sculpture by the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti entitled Diego au Chandail which is thought to be worth about €3 million; paintings and drawings by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse; numerous paintings by the Australian artist Sir Sidney Nolan; and a major collection of paintings by Jack B Yeats, including his renowned My Beautiful, My Beautiful.

Whereabouts

unknown The collection also contains

hundreds of other paintings and sculptures.

The current whereabouts of the works are unknown but art market sources in Dublin believe this week’s auction in England was “a trial run” and further pieces from the collection may turn up for sale.

Among the 45 artworks offered at auction this week was a Portrait of William Martin Murphy by Sir William Orpen that sold for £48,360 (about €60,000).

Press baron

Murphy, who is associated with the Dublin 1913 lockout, was Ireland’s first “press baron” and published both the

Irish Independent

and the

Sunday Independent

which his family controlled until the 1970s when the newspaper group was sold to Sir Anthony.

Other highlights among the 45 artworks were an oil on canvas by the Roscommon-born impressionist painter Roderic O'Conor entitled Reclining Nude which made £34,720 (€43,000).

A Rowan Gillespie bronze sculpture entitled If, inscribed with the words of Rudyard Kipling's poem, made £23,560 (about €29,000).

Sir Anthony is a former major shareholder in Independent News & Media and the former Waterford Wedgwood company.

Last November he was declared bankrupt by a court in the Bahamas.

Selling assets

In 2014 he sold his Co Kildare estate and stud farm, Castlemartin, for a reported €28 million and last year sold his holiday home in Glandore in west Cork for €1.5 million.

Efforts on Friday to contact a spokesman for Sir Anthony in connection with his art collection were unsuccessful.