Underlining the abiding interest in landscape among Ireland's painters, this genre dominates the sale of Irish art being held at the James Adam salerooms next Wednesday afternoon. Originally a reflection of late 18th-century radical romanticism, landscape has become essentially conservative in character and this shift can also be seen among the lots at Adam's.

So, among the earliest dated pictures are two by James Arthur O'Connor, both showing the heavily wooded landscapes he preferred to paint in which human figures seem dwarfed by an often-turbulent nature. These oils carry estimates of £8,000-£12,000 and £20,000-£30,000. The majority of other pictures in this field date from the present century and show a fondness for the more remote parts of the country. Typical are a number of paintings of Achill Island, the best of them from the hand of Paul Henry (£20,000-£25,000), which shows the island's mountains rearing darkly over stacked peat. In addition, there are coastal views of Achill by Desmond Turner (£300-£500) and John Crampton-Walker, the latter work another example of nature dominating man (£800-£1,200).

For a gentler approach to the Irish landscape, there are several examples of Percy French's watercolours in the sale. This artist's Sunshine Over Lake (£2,500-£3,500) has an obvious charm, as does his Bogland River Landscape. However, other artists this century have taken a more robust approach, such as that demonstrated by Daniel O'Neill's rather Yeatsian A Last Look Back (£6,000-£9,000) and George Russell's view of Mucknish Mountain, Co Donegal (£4,000-£6,000).

The tension between the gently pastoral and the bleak seems to be constant in Irish landscape art. In this respect, viewers to the sale may care to compare James Humbert Craig's Gypsies (£3,000-£4,000), in which a solitary caravan huddles below a mountain range, with the altogether more kindly In Feltrim Meadows (£9,000-£12,000) by Joseph Malachy Kavanagh, who prefers to show sheep placidly grazing before a thatched homestead. Other artists whose landscapes are in the same auction include Frank Egginton, Patrick Hennessy, Maurice MacGonigal and Derek Hill.

However, there are also a number of other lots worth mentioning here, not least of which is a fine early Le Brocquy oil dating from 1943 and showing two lovers kissing (£10,000-£15,000), a Flora Mitchell pen and ink of the Shelbourne Hotel adjacent to Adam's (£1,000-£1,500) and a pair of equine portraits by the 19th-century itinerant naif artist Samuel Spode (£6,000-£8,000).

Percy French's Sunshine Over Lake (estimate: £2,500-£3,500), one of the paintings in the James Adam sale next Wednesday

A 19th-century rosewood centre table has an estimate of £1,000-£1,500 for the Hamilton Osborne King auction next Wednesday

An Indo Persian helmet (circa 17th-18th century) is expected to fetch £500-£600 at Whyte's today