One day sale record caps buoyant year for furniture

IT IS not every year that there is an individual, one day auction in this country which totalled around £1.3 million, nor a sale of Irish art and antiques outside the country which realised £3.5 million.

Those two events would crown any year, and they are the supreme moments of 1995. :But they were also indicative of a very active and buoyant year for the market, where furniture consistently out performed everything else and where the only disappointment was a low key year for pictures.

The one day auction record occurred at Airfield in Dundrum, the former home of the Dublin family Overend, who lived the gracious turn of the century life at a time when everyone else had to relinquish it. Here Hamilton Osborne King achieved what is believed to be an Irish record for a one day sale of £1.3 million.

There were 600 bidders at the auction alone, another 600 left bids and there were no fewer than 40 phone bidders. This activity ensured that the top 23 lots all went for five figure sums, with the top price of the sale - and of the year - being the £52,000 paid for a satinwood and mahogany secretaire bookcase.

The Airfield sale saw the affirmation of the popularity of furniture by the Dublin master, Hicks - seven of his pieces sold for a total of £115,500, with the President, Mrs Robinson, paying £14,500 (of her own and not the public's money) for a partners desk by the great Dublin master.

The Office of Public Works chipped in too, buying a desk once owned and used by the Custom House architect James Gandon for £11,900.

Sothebys's Irish sale in June, held in London, caught everyone by surprise. It was a gamble for the big auction house but they worked hard on their pre publicity and it all: came off spectacularly, with an auction total of £3.5 million, over £2 million of that on Irish art alone.

The prices were astonishing - £496,000 for Yeats's Singing the Dark Rosaleen and £353,000 for the same artist's The Sea Captain's Car (all these prices include premiums, by the way). There was a world record price of a sentimental Walter Osborne work, Spoilt Pets, which sold for £271,000 and four Laverys went for £221,000, £177,000, £78,000 and £73,000.

Furniture also did well at the same sale, with the famous Blessington commode going to Dublin dealer Veal Dillon for £41,000, while a pair of demi lune tables sold for £84,000 and a Booker attributed mirror made £34,000. Another record price is thought to be the £24,000 paid for a Strahan of Dublin library table.

Throughout the year there were some excellent sales by the leading Irish players in the field - Hamilton Osborne King, James Adam, Mealy, Sheppard, Mullen of Laurel Park, Thomas Adams of Blackrock Ross of Belfast, Woodward of Cork. There were also strong performances by other salerooms and auctioneers, most notably Denis Drum of Malahide, Lynes & Lynes of Cork, John Dunphy of Limerick, Town & Country, Whyte's, O'Reilly's, who sold the finest piece of silver, a rare piece of Galway silver, and several more.

The three major London salerooms, Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips, also worked hard at their Irish connections during the year, and almost every major sale of their's of furniture and silver, as well as pictures, held an Irish item or two.

A feature of the year was the growth of antique fairs. They are now literally two a penny and it is difficult indeed to separate the good from the indifferent. They do serve a useful purpose but it is clear that there are far too many being held, a situation which is helping no one. Some sense of proportion has to enter into it all.

Finally, a welcome move during the year was the decision of the Revenue Commissioners to raise the ceiling price at which sales of antiques must be reported for tax purposes to the Revenue to £15,000 - this came about following a persuasive piece of lobbying by the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute, which represents many fine art auctioneers.