Trappings of landed gentry released for Slane Castle auction

Furniture and art from several notable country houses will be sold next week in a significant auction at Slane Castle, writes ROSE DOYLE

AN ANTIQUES auction, to be held in Slane Castle next week, will bring together furniture, objets d’art and everyday curiosities in one of the most interesting country house sales to be held in Ireland for a long time.

Slane Castle’s restored interior will host the equivalent of several country house sales under one roof while Adam’s, temporarily abandoning its St Stephen’s Green rooms, will auction 800 lots from historic Irish houses, as well as Georgian furniture once part of the contents of English stately homes.

The sale could be seen as a hands-on, graphically illustrated look at the furniture, silver, pictures and other trappings of the cultured lifestyle (nefarious, too, as detailed in the catalogue) lived by landed families of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The pictures, silver, furniture, porcelain and more on offer come from Ireland’s Rockingham, Boyle, Co Roscommon; Ballynatray, Co Waterford; Beaulieu, Rokeby and Cabra Castle; and from Stowe, Wotton and Gosford Park in England.

The pieces from Rockingham are doubly unique in that they were rescued from the 1957 fire which destroyed that house and are on the market for the first time.

Depending on your bank balance and/or furnishing needs, you can make a bid for anything from an 18th century brass doorstop (€50–€80) to a 19th century metal bound butter churn (€150–€200) all the way up to a pair of 19th century Maltese Armorial table tops (€30,000–€40,000).

The catalogue is a joy. Fat and informed, it’s full of clearly detailed pictures and flashes of humour – as in the use of A Moving Scene on the Road to Slane by W Heath, a political caricature (published June 1830) as frontpiece illustration.

Heath’s drawing highlights public resentment at Lord Conyngham who, having laid claim to the furnishing of his apartment in Windsor Castle, took them with him when he was subsequently sacked. Almost everything for sale has a narrative attaching.

Furniture rescued from Rockingham includes a pair of bookcases made by Dublin cabinet maker, James Hicks (€40,000–€60,000) and three rosewood tables rescued from the billiard room made circa 1825 by another Dublin cabinet maker, Robert Strahan. Known as the Lorton Pietra Dura Armorial Tables, their value is estimated at €30,000–€50,000.

The wider world is on lively view in the pictures of Luigi Mayer, an 18th century artist who was commissioned by one Robert Ainslie to record his travels in the Ottoman Empire.

Ainslie was quite a lad – spy, ambassador and courtier among other things – and the Mayer pictures are full of fascinating social detail.

The collection is on offer in 26 lots with an aggregate value of more than €200,000.

Bulging pockets are not a prerequisite at Slane; a modest outlay of €30–€50 will buy you a tangible piece of history in a scrapbook compiled by Robert Henry Birch of Enfield, Co Roscommon in the early 19th century.

If you prefer your history useful and in working order then €50–€100 will buy you a large, circa 1900 collection of infants’ linen and lace cloths from the nursery at Ballywalter Park or a couple of rugs – one a red Afghan and the other Eastern.

For those with a big old house to furnish there is no end of possibilities.

A wide fireplace would be made wonderful by an ornate, late Georgian brass and steel dog grate from the Wotton estate (€5,000– €8,000) while a rare and lovely early George III yew wood elbow chair (€10,000–€15,000) would be a talking point in any room.

For my money, if I had it, an empty room would be furnished by hanging a pair of early George III Rococo carved giltwood compartmented mirrors.

Made circa 1760, they would liven the space with their trellis and rockwork, their hanging flowers, scrolls, winged dragons, chinoiserie figures and floral sprays.

To sit on, admiring them, I would splurge on a carved, giltwood sofa with buttoned silk upholstery. From Ballywater Park, made circa 1860, its estimated value is €2,500–€3,500.

The “Country House Collections” auction takes place at Slane Castle, Slane, Co Meath on Tuesday, October 6th, beginning at 10.30am. Viewing: Saturday, October 3rd, 10am–5pm; Sunday, October 4th, 11am–5pm; and Monday, October 5th, 9am–4pm