Two Jack B. Yeats paintings, discovered in a barn in Ontario, Canada, after disappearing from public view almost 80 years ago are to be auctioned in Toronto tomorrow.
The oil-on-panel paintings, The Boat Builder and The Mail Car, Early Morning, were bought in Ireland by Canadian-based academic, Mr Alfred Tennyson DeLury, in 1923.
The paintings remained in the DeLury family since. However, Mr DeLury's relatives, unaware of their value, had kept them in storage in a barn at the family farm, north of Toronto.
The existence of the paintings came to light in the late 1980s, when art dealers Mr David and Mr Robert Heffel, discovered a reference to them in a 1930 art gallery catalogue and made contact with the DeLury family.
The paintings had been packed away and "forgotten" following Mr DeLury's death, his grand-nephew, Mr Robert DeLury said. "My aunt remembered the paintings hanging on the wall of the family home and sent my father and I to look for them. If it hadn't been for her, they may have been lost forever."
The Boat Builder is understood to be partially based on Yeats' drawing Boat-Building at Carna, used to illustrate an article on Galway boat builders by playwright JM Synge, which appeared in the Manchester Guardian in 1905.
Synge is pictured in The Mail Car, Early Morning, standing with a coat over his arm watching the approach of a mail car on the main street in Ballina, Co Mayo, some time during 1905.
Each painting is expected to attract bids of €80,744 to €113,034 at Heffel Fine Art Auction House, Toronto, tomorrow.
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