Jesuit pays 10 times estimate for Harry Clarke window

An un-named Jesuit priest was the top bidder in a fiercely-contested auction on Tuesday night of stained glass church windows made by the renowned Harry Clarke Studios.

The Dublin-based representative of the Catholic order, also known as the Society of Jesus, paid €31,000 – 10 times the estimate — for a single stained glass panel depicting ‘Saint Francis Xavier preaching in the Orient’ .

St Francis Xavier was the Spanish co-founder of the Jesuits who undertook missionary work in 16th century China.

The priest was also the successful bidder for a large three-panel window of Saint Francis Xavier which made €21,000. Both windows were made by commission in the 1930s for an unknown church in Co Kilkenny but were never collected from the studios.

The collection of stained glass went under the hammer at Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny and was sold in seven separate lots. All the lots sold for a combined total of €88,500 – ahead of the pre-auction estimate of €25,000 – following bidding online, via telephone and in the saleroom.

The windows were made for churches in Ireland, Wales and New Zealand in the mid-20th century but, for various reasons, were never collected or installed and have been in storage for years. They were owned by the late David Clarke, son of studio's founder, Harry Clarke.

The auctioneers said the vendors – the trustees of the estate of the late David Clarke – had tried to sell the collection to the National Museum of Ireland five years ago but terms could not be agreed and it was subsequently decided to consign the windows to auction.

Harry Clarke was a famous stained glass artist who died in 1931 and is best-known for the six windows he made for Bewley's cafe in Grafton Street.

The Harry Clarke Studios in Dublin continued to make stained glass windows – mainly for churches in Ireland and throughout the world – until its closure in 1973.

Among the other lots in the auction, a window depicting ‘Adam and Eve’ – designed for a church in New Zealand but never dispatched – made €9,500. The biggest surprise in the auction came when the auctioneer offered the final lot: a single panel for a window titled ‘St Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes’ — that originally had two panels, one believed lost- which had a top estimate of €500. It sold for €6,500. The window had been commissioned for a church in Wales but the priest there declined to pay the packaging and shipping costs of £33.