Paul Henry painting tops Adam’s art auction with €52,000 sale

At Adam’s Irish art sale in Dublin on Wednesday night, 70 per cent of the 194 lots sold for a total of €450,000.

The top price was achieved for a classic west-of-Ireland landscape, Lot 15, In the Western Mountains by Paul Henry which sold for a hammer price of €52,000 – within the estimate (€40,000-€60,000).

Lot 35, an Aran Islands scene, Waiting for the Tide by Sean Keating made €46,000 – below the estimate (€50,000-€70,000).

Lot 76, Life in the Pond II, an abstract painting dating from 1996, by Tony O'Malley made €40,000 – double the low estimate (€20,000-€30,000). Among the lower-priced lots, Lot 1, View of Donegal from Tory by Derek Hill made €3,000 – way above estimate (€800-€1,200).

The top lot in the sale, A Man Doing Accounts by Jack B Yeats, estimated at €200,000-€300,000, was withdrawn before the auction due to a "change of heart" by the vendor.

Dublin stage

Two other oils by Yeats failed to sell: Lot 41, The Talent, a 1949 painting depicting a singer on a Dublin stage that was once owned by Lord Killanin, estimated at €100,000-€150,000; and Lot 99, a 1943 painting, The Fern, which was once owned by Senator Joseph Brennan (€30,000-€40,000).

Apart from the art, Lot 121, "a Victorian silver model of the Church of St Anne, Shandon, Cork, otherwise known as the "Shandon Bells & Tower" sold for €11,000 – double the estimate (€4,000-€6,000).

Adam’s said the piece had, not surprisingly, attracted “very strong interest from Cork”.

According to catalogue notes, “This exhibition piece was crafted by Mr W A Clare, foreman jeweller at William Egan & Sons for the Cork exhibition of 1883 and was subsequently shown at the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans. A plaque on the base is inscribed ‘Restoration work carried out by Sean Carroll & Sons, Cork, May 1998’. It was also exhibited in Cork, April-June 2005, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, ‘Cork Silver and Gold, Four Centuries of Craftsmanship’.”

The 20-inch high piece, hallmarked for Dublin 1883, with the mark of Egan of Cork, is on a mahogany platform.