Painting reattributed to Paul Henry joins notable works by William Scott in deVeres sale

It sold for just €1,000 in 2014, but now, a painting that was originally believed to have been created by Grace Henry, is back on the market for a far greater sum.

The painting, The Hay Stacker, has had quite a change of fate since it last sold through deVeres auction house in 2014.

“It had been submitted to us as a Grace Henry as part of a probate sale,” says curator Rory Guthrie of deVeres of the painting, then called Woman Tending a Haystack. He says the house never questioned it at the time, as the provenance was in order, and the painting duly sold for €1,000.

However, it has since been reattributed as a Paul Henry, and is back on the market with a €60,000-€90,000 estimate – a considerable return for the buyer from 2014.

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Guthrie says a panel of experts has decided the painting is indeed a work by Paul Henry and not his wife, Grace: “There is a BBC documentary on Paul Henry [Into the West, 1997] and it effectively shows a sketch of the woman on the ladder, the same as in the painting. Paul Henry always painted from sketches that he made on Achill island, and the experts who did a comparison agreed it was a work by Paul Henry.”

It’s not the only Henry for sale at the upcoming deVeres sale, which is now open and ends on June 13th.

“While you might not have one Henry for three or four sales, then all of a sudden you can have five,” says Guthrie of deVeres.

Four additional works by Paul Henry feature in the upcoming sale, and are of his more recognisable western landscapes, with bulbous clouds with either cottages or lakes to the foreground. Lower estimates are in the €60,000-€120,000 range, rising to €160,000 for Connemara Cottages.

Catalogue notes, taken from Paul Henry: Paintings Drawings Illustrations by the late Dr SB Kennedy, describe the painting as follows: “The artist’s palette very much like his mood, lightened as his domestic problems, the final separation from his first wife Grace, and financial difficulties, were overcome and he was an artist at peace.”

It’s an impressive catalogue with a quintessential William Scott, An Orchard of Pears No 1 from 1976, headlining the sale (€150,000-€200,000). The painting was originally purchased in London, and formed part of a private collection in Japan, where it was exhibited in Tokyo in 1978, showing the universal appeal of the Northern Irish artist.

Two further William Scott paintings are also listed: Nude on a Yellow Couch (€70,000-€100,000) and Portrait of Mary Scott (€60,000-€90,000), who was Mary Lucas, a fellow art student from his time at the Royal Academy Schools in London, whom he married in 1937. The couple opened a painting school in Hotel de la Poste, in Pont-Aven, run by Julia Correlleau, who was either gifted the two portraits or paid in lieu of accommodation, as was the tradition at the time.

A really lovely work, The Window, by Sean Keating (€80,000-€120,000), was acquired directly from the artist in 1954, after it was exhibited in Paris and New York. It features Keating’s wife May (nee Walsh), in a bow-ended room in Woodtown, an 18th-century pile near Rathfarnham where the couple lived for a time. deveres.ie