Six art and vintage sales to visit around Ireland this bank holiday weekend

There’s something about May which can inspire even the most determined couch potato to get out, about and into the wider world.

The evenings are getting longer, the temperatures are getting balmier – and there’s a wealth of art, antiques and collectibles action on the horizon this bank holiday weekend.

For a glimpse into a faraway and forgotten way of life, look no further than the selection of tribal masks from the Congo which will go under the hammer at Whyte’s Eclectic Collector sale in Dublin today.

Collected by Major Ian Kelsey, a surveyor in central Africa between 1898 and 1920, these masks would have been worn at secret military society rites and range in price from €300 to €1,200.

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Casting our minds back to Ireland’s golden age of silver

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Lot 423 (€700–€1,000) is a carved wooden mask (above), its facial features picked out in brightly coloured beads, its head adorned with a woven fabric and shell crown.

Travel posters

Closer to home, Whyte’s also have a number of atmospheric Irish travel posters in the sale. Beam yourself to Ireland’s Atlantic coast in an instant with a travel poster featuring a Paul Henry landscape, published by Bord Fáilte and still in its original postal tube (Lot 468, €400–€699).

Another poster invokes the misty blue-greys of Henry’s Connemara – except that the London, Midland and Railways poster is encouraging tourists to visit the mountain landscapes of Wicklow. (Lot 459, €600–€800).

And five horses stand proudly on top of the world in Olive Whitmore’s poster for the 1955 Dublin Horse Show (Lot 470, estimate €500–€700). The sale is at 11am today and if it’s raining, you can always stay on that couch and bid online. See whytes.ie

Victorian Rocking horse

Whatever the weather, many of us will be heading to the seaside for the weekend and at Kelly’s Hotel in Rosslare, Co Wexford, today, you can view the 300-plus lots at Dolan’s spring auction of art and antiques.

From Lot 1, a Victorian rocking horse, (€1,200–€1,600) to Lot 283, a cast-iron doorstop of a cow, (€30–€40), the sale is filled with the colourful and the quirky.

Among the visual art you'll find four paintings by Charles Harper (Lot 84, Personas, €6,000–€10,000), Patrick Hennessy's Connemara Pools (Lot 149, €7,000–€10,000), seascapes from Carina Scott (Lot 99, Moonlight, €1,000–€1,500) and a self-portrait by the inimitable Terry Wogan, inscribed: "If this is Art, I am a Dutchman!" (Lot 70, €500–€800).

The auction begins tomorrow (May 6th) at 2pm. dolansart.com

The annual marquee sale at Kelly’s is something of a Wexford spring institution. On the other side of the country, however, a brand-new antiques event will make its debut next weekend when Robin O’Donnell brings one of his Hibernian Antique Fairs to Carrigaline in Co Cork for the first time.

“I have 35 stands – that’s a full house. I couldn’t fit a mouse in there,” he says.

Among those displaying their wares at the Carrigaline Court Hotel on Sunday next (May 13th) will be jewellery and silver dealers Matthew Weldon, Marie Curran, Sandra Hogan and Ignatius Buckley, the coins and banknotes specialist Richard Walshe from Galway and, for the first time outside of Dublin, antique silver experts Danker Antiques.

The location is six miles from the Jack Lynch Tunnel and not far from Kinsale, where O’Donnell runs regular collector fairs. Among the many and varied items in the sale is a Cork Georgian silver brandy pan from 1820, made by Carden Terry and Jane Williams, from Danker Antiques. The Carrigaline fair runs from 11am to 6pm.

Hidden silver in Birr

Right in the centre of Ireland, Co Offaly often has the highest temperatures in the country and the temperature of collectors may well be raised by a specialist silver sale coming up at Purcell’s of Birr. Viewing begins today as some 220 lots of silver from a private collection, amassed over a period of 40 years, get ready to go under the hammer.

“The owner died some 30 years ago, so all of these items have not been seen for at least 30, and possibly more than 70, years,” says Conor Purcell.

The sale includes three lots of Limerick silver and 21 lots of Cork silver, as well as 300 lots of coins, banknotes and militaria from the same collection.

Lot 339 is a set of eight Limerick dessert spoons with the mark of John Purcell, family crest of eagle on a crown of feathers (€1,000–€1,500). Lot 340 is an exceptionally rare pair of Limerick silver serving spoons by Maurice Fitzgerald (€800–€1,200).

At the miniature end of the market, Lot 391 – a doll’s chair, five and a half centimetres tall, dated London 1894 with the maker’s mark Thomas Glaser, engraved with pastoral scenes – is €40–€60. The auction takes place at 2pm on Friday (May 9th) purcellauctioneers.ie

Art to collect in Co Louth

Beautiful objects of the past tend to grab the headlines on these pages, but all around the country painters, sculptors and ceramicists are busy making the beautiful objects of the future.

The gently undulating countryside of Co Louth has been home to a number of these makers over the years, and the 50th anniversary exhibition of the North Louth Artists group features more than 60 works created by 14 professional artists who live and work in the area.

They include the glass artist Alva Gallagher and the ceramic sculptor Frances Lambe. Both are strongly influenced by the sea: Gallagher seeks to freeze its tidal patterns in her complex, twisting shapes, while Lambe’s minutely-detailed ceramic spheres and ovals describe an underwater world pulsing with life.

Local bogs inform the work of painter John O’Connor; Ciara Agnew’s abstract vision transforms the agricultural landscapes of Mullacrew into shimmering geometry.

The show will also include work by Sandra and Derek Bell, Patrick Conyngham, Rosemary Warren, Gerry Clarke and the Dundalk-born graffiti artist Omin.

The group’s chairperson, the Cooley-Peninsula-based landscape painter Irene Woods, says that since it was founded in 1968 by Bea Orpen and Nano Reid, the aim of the group has been to give Louth artists opportunities to show their work while giving the public the chance to appreciate it.

“We are delighted to continue that tradition into its 50th year,” she says. The show is at Dundalk’s An Táin centre from May 10th–26th. northlouthartists.com