Although still more than six weeks away, interest in the annual Irish art sales conducted by Christie's and Sotheby's is starting to grow. The former will be holding a view in Dublin of key pieces from its auction on April 10th and 11th at the Shelbourne Hotel.

One picture in which Christie's has especially high hopes is a Jack Yeats oil called The Whistle of a Jacket. The company is not stating publicly the price this work is expected to make, but the hope must be that it will surpass a million pounds and even beat the existing record for a Yeats painting, £1.23m sterling, set at Sotheby's two years ago for The Wild Ones.

Painted in 1946 and therefore coming relatively late in the artist's career, The Whistle of a Jacket depicts one of Yeats's abidingly popular subjects, a galloping horse, in this instance bearing a jockey. From the earliest graphic illustrations, horses recur time and again in his oeuvre and this example is a very typical expression of that interest.

Painted in typical expressionist style with thick impasto, in this picture, according to art historian Hilary Pyle, "the poetry of paint expresses all that could be desired, with a rich imagery of colour and of tone, and of lighting, of detail and of sheer dancing pigment."

Exuberance is unquestionably the most abiding characteristic of The Whistle of a Jacket and that ought to attract potential collectors at the sale. The picture has been in private ownership for some time and appears not to have been on public exhibition since the mid-1960s. The Shelbourne Hotel viewing may, therefore, be the only opportunity for many people to examine the work. This is by no means the only Jack Yeats picture being carried by Christie's in its forthcoming Irish sale. Others include another painting from 1946, Moore's Melodies (estimate £80,000£120,000), as well as The Sick Bed (£100,000-£150,000) and Clifden, Connemara (£30,000-£40,000).

Another artist who will be especially well-represented on this occasion is Roderic O'Conor. The strongest lot here is a Self-portrait Holding Palette, for which £100,000-£150,000 is expected. Dating from 1919, this is one of only two full-length self-portraits produced by O'Conor (the other was painted nine years earlier) and remained in his possession for the rest of his life, being included in the posthumous studio sale. In fact, it shows O'Conor standing in his Paris studio on the Rue du ChercheMidi, the darkness of which is effectively conveyed by the painting. O'Conor's biographer Jonathan Benington observes that this is "an honest likeness of himself in working clothes holding the tools of his trade, emerging from the gloom with the aid of side-lighting and confronting the viewer with the withering honesty of a latter-day Rembrandt."

Further O'Conors being sold by Christie's on this occasion include a still life called A Basket of Roses on a White Cloth (£80,000-£120,000) and Rooftops - A Village (£30,000-£50,000), the latter a view of Pont-Aven in Brittany.