Aer Lingus features in impressive art sale

Earlier this month, extensive press attention was given to the impending disposal by Aer Lingus of its art collection. That group of pictures comes up for sale next Tuesday, but is only one small part of a much larger auction being conducted by De Vere's at the RHA Gallagher Gallery in Dublin.

While many of the lots being offered by this house are, as is now customary, of relatively recent vintage, some definitely qualify as being old. Such is the case, for example, with number 326, a set of 18 hand-coloured aquatints of Dublin by James Malton.

These used to be owned by the GPA Group, the greater part of which collection was sold by De Vere's earlier this year for a total in the region of £600,000; next week, the Malton prints are expected to go for £3,500 to £4,500.

Number 290 is a late 17th, early 18th century Irish portrait of a gentleman in red coat and powdered wig (£5,000 to £7,000) and number 289, a Portrait Study of Charles Stewart Parnell by Theodore Wirgman (£6,000 to £9,000).

Other old master works include lot 238, a James Arthur O'Connor landscape "Figures on a Woodland Path (£14,000 to £18,000 and once more formerly owned by the GPA Group) and lot 270, an Andrew Nicholl watercolour showing Dublin Bay with the Hill of Howth in the distance & Sandymount Strand & D·n Laoghaire in the foreground (£20,000 to £25,000). But of course many of the more interesting pictures date from the past century and feature many of the more familiar and collectable names.

Paul Henry, for example, is represented by lot 243, a prospect of a bog on Achill Island, Co Mayo, which has not been offered for sale at auction before; it was given by the artist to the present owner's parents as a wedding gift in 1936.

The oil on canvas is now expected to make £18,000 to £22,000. Then there is a group of nine watercolours by Mildred Anne Butler, lots 228 to 236, acquired at the artist's studio sale conducted by Christie's 20 years ago. Mostly Irish landscapes and views of Kilmurry, the estimates for these pictures run from £600 to £5,000.

There are five examples of Jack B Yeats's work, one of them - lot 218X, On Merrion Strand (£250,000 to £300,000) - coming from the Aer Lingus collection, while another, lot 212 is a very interesting early work, a watercolour, gouache and pencil study of a fairground merry-go-round dating from 1897. It carries a pre-sale estimate of £70,000 to £100,000.

Sean Keating and Harry Kernoff are two other well-known artists well-represented in this auction. Lot 203, for example, is a fine Keating charcoal of an Aran Girl Writing (£4,000 to £6,000) while number 180 is a Kernoff oil showing Sandycove's Forty Foot swimming place which may have been shown at the RHA in 1941.

If so, it then carried a price of £50 whereas now the picture is expected to make up to £30,000. The size of this auction means it is divided into two sections, the first at 1 p.m., the second at 6 p.m.