Sir Anthony O'Reilly painting 'flipped' for big profit in Dublin art auction

Most art is bought for pleasure not investment. Paintings that appreciate significantly in value are few and far between. And the capital appreciation is often only apparent decades after the purchase and often after the vendor has died and an estate is sold.

For example, people who bought paintings by Jack B Yeats in the 1930s and 1940s – for relatively modest sums – presumably did so because they liked the art and were not speculating about its potential future value. Yet those paintings are now often worth tens of thousands of euro when they appear at auction.

However, some art is bought with resale – at a quick profit – specifically in mind, a practice known as “flipping” which was also prevalent in the property market during the boom.

In April this year part of the vast art collection of former newspaper magnate Sir Anthony O’Reilly was auctioned in England by Dreweatt’s auctioneers in Berkshire.

Some of the paintings – acquired by an unknown bidder – were then almost immediately consigned for sale to de Veres art auction in Dublin last week and made a very tidy profit for the sharp-eyed vendor (s) who had acquired them in England.

Among them was A View of Semur-en-Auxois by Mary Swanzy which de Veres sold for €41,000.

The vendor had acquired it for only £12,000 (approximately €15,700) at Dreweatt’s.

A Basil Blackshaw painting, Headland 2', that made €11,500 at de Veres had been bought for just £5,000 (approximately €6,500) at Dreweatt's.

Mary Swanzy, born in 1882, was the daughter of a wealthy Merrion Square eye surgeon, and is regarded as one of Ireland’s first “modern” artists.

She travelled extensively and eventually settled in London, where she died in 1998. A View of Semur-en-Auxois depicts the small mediaeval town in eastern France that is a popular destination for artists.

The highest price ever at auction for a painting by Swanzy was achieved at Whyte’s in Dublin in 2006 when her Cubist Landscape with Red Pagoda and Bridge sold for €180,000.