Sotheby’s takes Irish art to London auction

A Jack B Yeats painting that once hung at Ballymaloe House in Co Cork is among Irish paintings to be sold in London next month. The 1930 painting, called Water Lilies, will be offered at Sotheyby's Irish Art sale – the annual auction in London devoted to Irish art – scheduled for September 13th at its New Bond Street saleroom.

A series of 250 paintings known as Water Lilies (Nymphéas, in French) by the Impressionist artist Claude Monet, made in his famous garden at Giverny south of Paris, is regarded as a highlight of 20th-century art.

However, water lilies also attracted the attention of Jack B Yeats and Lot 53 at Sotheby's is an oil-on-canvas measuring 18 by 24 inches. It is estimated at £100,000-£150,000 (€116,000-€175,000) and will go on display in a Dublin preview of the auction at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) gallery at 15 Ely Place, Dublin 2, for four days from Thursday, September 1st.

Sotheby’s says “a man and woman sit languidly in a small rowing boat as it drifts across the water, their hands draped over the side brushing the water lilies as they pass”.

Water Lilies was owned until 2005 by the Allen family, who run the Ballymaloe restaurant and cookery school in east Cork, and it used to hang in the "Yeats Room" at Ballymaloe House.

But, 11 years ago, the Allen family sold its collection of three Yeats paintings at de Veres auctioneers in Dublin where Water Lilies made €200,000.

The painting was bought by an unknown Irish private collector who has now decided to sell it.

Charlie Minter, the head of the Irish Art department at Sotheby's in London, described it as "a wonderfully expressive and romantic Yeats".

Minter, who will be in Dublin for the viewing this week, told The Irish Times that the reaction of clients to the relaunch of the Irish Art sale last year, after it was suspended during the recession, was "very encouraging" and "there is a strong sense buyers are keen to re-engage in the market".

He said: “London has always attracted a global pool of sellers and buyers, and right now it offers a very good opportunity for our US and European collectors given the favourable exchange rates, which in turn should see good results for sellers.”

Lot 17, a painting by Sir John Lavery titled Mary Borden and her family at Bisham Abbey, which Minter described as "a sumptuous Lavery interior . . . which features a rare self-portrait of the artist reflected in a grand mirror".

Catalogue notes describe it as “arguably the most evocative of Lavery’s ‘portrait interiors’ representing writers”.

The painting, dated 1925, which shows the American-born novelist Mary Borden at her home in Buckinghamshire, is estimated at £150,000-£250,000.

The prices for some Irish artists took a hammering after the economic crash in 2008.

For example, Lot 43, Cubist Landscape with Red Pagoda and Bridge by Mary Swanzy, is now estimated at £60,000-£80,000, 10 years after it made €180,000 at Whyte's in Dublin in 2006, a record price for the artist.

Among other highlights in the 70-lot sale: Lot 21 is a seascape titled Blue Sea and Red Rocks, Brittany, by Roderic O'Conor, estimated at £80,000- £120,000. It has been consigned from a private collection in Queensland, Australia, and it hasn't been seen in public since it was exhibited in Sydney in the 1960s.

Lot 47, Mending Nets, Aran, by Gerard Dillon, is estimated at £100,000-£150,000, six years after it changed hands at Adam's in Dublin for €80,000.

Lot 57, Prescriptions Accurately Prepared, by John Doherty, is estimated at £15,000-£20,000 and shows the wonderful shopfront of a Clonmel pharmacy, now sadly deteriorating, at a time when An Post is celebrating Irish shopfronts in a series of new stamps.

The sculpture lots include Lot 68 – a bronze titled Lazy Lady, estimated at £12,000- £18,000, by Rowan Gillespie, the Dublin sculptor whose piece When Hope and Reason Rhyme sold in last year's salefor £161,000, more than five times the top estimate.

Three paintings recovered last year after being stolen from a house in Co Wicklow have been consigned by insurance company Chubb: Lot 44 – The Fern in the Area, by Jack B Yeats, is estimated at £20,000-£30,000; Lot 16, Landscape with Cottage by Paul Henry, is estimated at £20,000- £30,000; and Lot 9, Portrait de femme au chapeau, by Sir John Lavery, is estimated at £7,000-£10,000.

Viewing in Dublin from September 1st-4th at the Royal Hibernian Academy, 15 Ely Place, Dublin 2, and in London, from September 8th-12th