COLLECTORS FROM around the world spent almost €4 million yesterday buying art and antiques from the estate of the late Dr Tony Ryan, founder of Ryanair.
Christie’s in London auctioned a selection of lavish and ornate paintings, sculpture, tapestries, furniture, clocks, porcelain and objets d’art from his Co Kildare house, Lyons Demesne.
Some 450 items – from an estimated collection of more than 2,000 pieces – were shipped to London for the marathon seven-hour auction.
There hasn’t been a house clearance to match it since the Anglo-Irish aristocracy abandoned the “Big House” and sold off the contents during the decades following Independence.
The Financial Timesdescribed the collection as "an airline magnate's flights of fancy" providing "all the essentials for decorating a magnificent country house".
Ryan, who died aged 71 in 2007, was a native of Thurles, Co Tipperary, and a billionaire tax exile whose main residence was in Monaco.
But he spent millions restoring Lyons Demesne near Celbridge and filled it with Ireland’s most valuable private collection of art and antiques, which he had acquired during a major worldwide buying spree.
Bidders in Christie’s King Street saleroom competed with collectors bidding by telephone and on the internet from locations as varied as Brazil, New Jersey, New York, Italy, Germany, the Bahamas – and Ireland.
The sale realised £3.4 million (€3.8 million) – considerably more than the estimate – and 83 per cent of lots sold.
A painting by Irish artist Hugh Douglas Hamilton was the top seller and made £337,250. Portrait of Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire depicts a frock-coated 18th-century aristocrat who lived at Hillsborough Castle, Co Down, and was MP for the county.
The price establishes a new 2011 auction record for an Irish painting and far exceeds the $325,000 (€228,000) paid for The Breaker Outby Jack B Yeats in the United States last month.
Among other highlights sold was a piece of 18th-century furniture, described as a “demi-lune jardinière cabinet in the manner of Robert Adam” which made £103,250;
Portrait of Captain Marshall Roberts, Master of South Notts Foxhoundsby Sir William Orpen, which made £97,250; and a pair of Georgian mahogany armchairs, believed to have originally been made for Russborough House, Co Wicklow, made £39,750.
Not everything sold and not all of Ryan’s investments paid off.
Although the sale took place on Bastille Day, a set of six Louis XV armchairs, upholstered in Aubusson tapestry, failed to sell. Ryan had paid more than £90,000 for the chairs – from the Paris residence of the Thyssen-Bornemisza dynasty – 11 years ago, but the auctioneer “passed” on the lot when bidding faltered at just £26,000.
Lyons Demesne, formerly home to the Earls of Cloncurry, was bought by Ryan in 1996. The house – with its 10 guest bedroom suites, private cinema, private pub, half-Olympic-sized swimming pool and 22-acre lake, aircraft landing strip and extensive stables – is now unoccupied and is also for sale, with a guide price of €50 million.
Ryan’s heirs have not yet announced plans for the disposal of the remainder of the collection of art and antiques.
