A painting by the Belfast-born Sir John Lavery, whose whereabouts were unknown from 1966 until 1991, when it reappeared in London, yesterday sold at auction for £1.3 million, a record for an Irish painting.
The Bridge at Grez was bought by a European private collector at Christie's in London for £1,321,500. The painting, which dates from 1883, shows, as Lavery described it himself, "a man in a skiff kissing his hand to a pair of happy girls in a distant boat".
According to a story Lavery told, the picture was bought by a friend "wishing to help me" in 1886 for £30 and was acquired in 1889 by the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. It disappeared from view in 1966 into a private US collection. John Lavery was born in Belfast in 1856, the son of a publican. He lost both his father and mother when he was three and was fostered out to an uncle in Co Down. He ran away to Glasgow when he was 10.
After going back to his uncle's farm, he moved again to Glasgow and got a job as an apprentice retoucher. He went to Paris in November 1881 to study at L'Academie Julian.
He painted many portraits, including those of the British king and queen in 1911, Winston Churchill and Irish political leaders, Cardinal Logue in Armagh and Michael Collins in his coffin.
Lavery was then commissioned to paint a portrait of his wife, Lady Hazel, for Irish bank notes. He died in Kilkenny in 1941, aged 85.
In 1989, four Lavery paintings Lavery fetched £168,300.