First batch of Smurfit's paintings may fetch #1.8m

The multi-million euro art collection built up over two decades by Dr Michael Smurfit is to go under the hammer, with the first 10 of 500 paintings to be sold in London next May.

Sotheby's expects to fetch £1.8 million sterling for the batch of Irish paintings which includes important works by Sir William Orpen, Jack B. Yeats and Louis Le Brocquy.

The decision to dispose of one of the finest privately owned art collections in Ireland follows the takeover of the Jefferson Smurfit Group by the American venture capital firm, Madison Dearborn, which is set to sell off all the company's non-essential assets.

The paintings were assembled since the mid-1980s by Dr Smurfit and some of the best of them were hung in his home as well as in the K Club in Co Kildare. Dr Smurfit is taking direct control over the sale of the paintings, which will be sold on a staggered release to avoid flooding the London and Dublin markets. For instance, the Yeats painting going to Sotheby's - A Daughter of the Circus - is by no means the best in the collection. Dr Smurfit also owns Harvest Moon, an exceptionally fine late painting by Yeats which was bought through Adams in Dublin in 1989 for a record £280,000 and is now estimated to be worth at least €1 million.

The decision to hold back some of the more expensive paintings was apparently dictated by a nervousness in the London art market in recent months. A poor opening to the auction season in May would have a knock-on effect on the values of other paintings by the leading Irish artists.

There is disappointment among Irish auction houses that the first paintings - and probably the best of the rest - are to be sold in London rather in Dublin. One of the major players in the market expressed surprise last night that the first of the paintings were being sold through London since prices in Dublin were at least as strong, if not higher than those achieved at last spring's London Irish art sales.

Dr Smurfit had become one of the most astute buyers of Irish art and managed to corner some of the best examples of work by Orpen, Yeats, Lavery and Walter Osborne. The most valuable painting among the first 10 to be sold is Orpen's portrait of Mrs St George, which is expected to make up to £700,000 sterling.

Sotheby's specialist handling the sale, Ms Jo Doidge-Harrison, has been working closely with Dr Smurfit and Madison Dearborn to select paintings for the sale and has examined most of the 500 works in the collection.

"I would say it is magnificent in terms of the scope and the range. He has a lot of really key pictures from artists from their best periods," she said.

Sotheby's reckons that the next most important private collection of Irish art in Ireland is held by one of the owners of the Merrion Hotel, Mr Lochlann Quinn.