TWO IMPORTANT Jack B Yeats watercolours have fetched £18,500 (€22,800) at auction in the UK. The pair of watercolours are of two brothers, Young John and Michael, which were sold together by Keys Fine Art dealers in Norfolk yesterday.
It was estimated they would fetch between £6,000 and £8,000 (€7,400 and €9,850) but are believed to have fetched a multiple of that because they have been unseen in public since the day they were originally purchased.
They were bought from his Dublin exhibition in 1905. The Dublin Evening Mailfrom the time was quoted as saying that "John is the industrious stay-at-home and Michael is the bold, bad prodigal. Michael is a fine study of lawless strength, but John, with vacuous countenance and a rabbit's mouth, would be better named 'village idiot'."
The paintings are included in Irish art historian Dr Hilary Pyle's book Jack B Yeats: His Watercolours, Drawings and Pastels, although until their recent discovery she had not seen them.
The original purchaser of the works, Jack Geoghegan, is said to have been an important supporter of Yeats. He held on to the paintings until 1952. In recent times they were relegated to a drawer until they were rediscovered earlier this year and sent for auction.
