Florid furniture and some languid lions on the Green

THE auction being held next Wednesday morning at the James Adam salesrooms on St Stephen's Green, Dublin, is a typical mixture of furniture, painting, glassware and china, with a few rather special items worth inspecting on preceding days.

The lot likely to fetch the sale's highest price is a George Ill in laid, mahogany, rectangular secretaire bookcase, in excellent condition and standing almost eight and a half feet high. With well moulded cornice above twin, astragal glazed panel doors, this carries an estimate of £7,000-£9,000.

Many Irish collectors prefer a more opulent style of decoration than this relatively austere piece of furniture, so a late 19th century Louis XV style, kingwood, marquetry upright cabinet (estimate £5,000-£7,000) is sure to have its admirers. A pair of Victorian Louis XIV-style boulleshaped rectangular, folding top card tables, with gilt metal mounts (£3,000-£5,000), should also attract attention.

For those whose taste runs to the still more ornate, there is a remarkable Bohemian gilt brass framed chandelier of quatrefoil baluster form, decorated with clusters of clear and amber beads in the form of bunches of grapes (£2,000-£3,000), as well as a large, early 19th century Austrian heavily carved and stained pine wall mirror (£1,800-£2,400).

There are plenty of more simply decorated pieces of furniture in the same sale, such as a George III walnut rectangular, slope front bureau (£2,000-£2,500) and a six foot tall mahogany chest on chest from the same period and carrying the same estimate. Among the more unusual items in the auction are a pair of 18th century reclining stone lions, showing ample evidence of their age (£4,000-£5,000), and a William IV rosewood-framed octagonal centre table, its inset black marble top decorated with pietra dura ornithological and foliate motifs (£5,000-£6,000).

And worth attention, too, are a Spanish, 18th century elm rectangular chest, probably used for storing vestments (£3,000-£4,000), and a pair of early 18th century Italian, painted and giltwood rectangular form palazzo chairs (£1,200-£1,800).

Among the china, there are quite a few pieces of Belleek, not least of which is a first period nautilus shell on coral vase, with vividly orange painted supports (£400-£600), and a first period amphora vase, 13 inches high, which, with two smaller amphora vases, is expected to make £800-£1,000.

A 19th century Mason's iron stone dessert service, carrying Chinese motifs within a green and gilt border, carries an estimate of £500-£700 and a Victorian Coalport dessert service (£300-£400).