Irish art enjoys the attention of big spenders

New records for work by a number of Irish artists was achieved at two recent sales. Whether these prices are indicative of growing interest in the country's art or simply a reflection of the current economic boom is impossible to judge. However, it would appear that more purchasers are prepared to pay higher figures than ever before, with the focus no longer being confined to just a handful of names.

Now that Jack B. Yeats, always the market leader in terms of price, has passed the £1 million barrier - one of his works reached this milestone last week at Sotheby's - inevitably other, more affordable artists will start to receive more attention.

At Christie's in London, for example, Orpen, Osborne and Leech all made new records a week ago. The Orpen picture, A Mere Fracture, In the Newcomes, Fitzroy Street, which had been in the same family ownership since 1915, had always been expected to do well. But its pre-sale catalogue estimate of £100,000-£150,000 sterling bore no relation to the £716,500 paid by Alan Hobart of London's Pyms Gallery.

Not quite so impressive, but still a new record for the artist in question, was the £370,000 made by Walter Osborne's Beneath St Jacques, Antwerp (estimate £180,000-£220,000). Similarly, Leech's The Blue Shop, Quimper set a new record when it sold for £265,000.

The best-seller of the Christie's sale was, perhaps inevitably, a Jack Yeats oil called The Proud Galloper, which went under the hammer for £870,500, and another picture which far surpassed all expectations was Sir John Lavery's Skating at Wengen; it made £606,500. All these figures are in sterling.

Meanwhile, at the James Adam salerooms in Dublin, more new records were set for Sean Keating, Patrick Collins and Evie Hone. The joint Adam/Bonhams auction disposed of Keating's Unloading the Catch for £70,000, more than double its top estimate of £28,000; the previous best price for this artist was £65,000.

Patrick Collins's The Liffey Quays went for £40,000 (top estimate £15,000) and Evie Hone's Summer Day at Clonbur fetched £14,000 (estimate £4,000-£6,000). This was yet another occasion when estimates really seemed rather irrelevant. Walter Osborne's Street Scene, Quimperle, which had been expected to go for £40,000-£60,000 fetched the event's top price by the time it eventually went for £110,000. William Scott's Cyclamen in an Earthenware Pot also surpassed its estimate when it went for £40,000, just as James Arthur O'Connor's Figures in a Parkland Set- ting, expected to go for £5,000-£8,000, actually fetched £24,000.

By comparison, the figures of £77,000 and £60,000 respectively for an oil and a watercolour by Yeats seemed quite modest. Adam's James O'Halloran is particularly pleased with the prices he achieved for Mildred Anne Butler, an artist who has been in the doldrums of late. One of her watercolour studies of peacocks went for £9,500 and another for £4,700.