Valuable works by Orpen, Yeats and Leech, all from a private collection,are expected to fetch top prices at sale, writes Joe Armstrong
Works by Sir William Orpen, Jack Butler Yeats and William John Leech highlight Christie's seventh annual auction of Irish art next month.
The Orpen is expected to make up to £1,500,000 sterling (€2,451,000), Yeats up to £1,200,000 and the upper estimate for the Leech picture is £600,000. All three are from a single private collection.
Last year at Christie's, Jack Butler Yeats's The Whistle of a Jacket, 1946, made £1,103,715, the second highest price for the artist at auction.
This year's Irish sale takes place on May 17th. It boasts a strong selection of works by Irish artists from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The first part of the auction takes place at Christie's, King Street, London, with pictures valued from £3,000. The second part is at South Kensington, London, with lots starting at £200.
Howth Head looking towards Dublin across Dublin Bay, an oil on canvas painted by Sir William Orpen, RHA, (1878-1931), in 1910, features Orpen's wife, Grace. She is reclining, looking towards the distant Wicklow hills across the bay, beneath a remarkable sky. The picture is expected to fetch between £1 million and £1.5 million sterling.
The second highlight, The Avenger, is one of three works by Jack Butler Yeats, RHA, (1871-1957), in the auction. Described as an "enigmatic and characteristically vivid work", the 1928 picture depicts a man writing in the foreground while a firing squad is seen through a window in the distance. It is estimated at £800,000 to £1,200,000.
The third picture from the collection, and third highlight of the auction, is a rare work by William John Leech, RHA, (1881-1968). Entitled Aloes near Les Martiques, it is expected to make £400,000 to £600,000. Leech worked at Martiques, an untouched French fishing village, drawn there by its Bohemian ambience and picturesque landscape. It is one of only three extant large works from the series not already in a public collection.
Jack Butler Yeats' The Velvet Strand, depicting a man standing on Portmarnock Strand, Dublin, is estimated at £150,000 to £200,000. Another work by Yeats, On the Way to the Sea, features a horse and a boy dancing by the side of a stream.
An early, large, panoramic view of Dublin showing the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, by Dublin-based landscape painter Joseph Tudor, who produced his best work from 1739 to 1759, is estimated at £150,000 to £250,000. Meanwhile, artist George Barret, RA, (1732-1784), is represented by an extensive wooded river landscape, with anglers beside a pool below a waterfall and a rainbow - an oil on canvas estimated at £80,000 to £120,000.
A more recent work, The Lobster Fisher by Belfast-born artist Paul Henry, painted between 1911 and 1913, portrays a lone fisherman in a currach, preparing to set forth onto the calm evening sea. This is the original picture that featured on the 15-penny stamp in 1976 that commemorated the centenary of Henry's birth.
An 1893 picture by Roderic O'Conor (1860-1940), Sunset at Pont-Aven, is expected to fetch £200,000 to £300,000, while Child with a green background by Louis Le Brocquy, HRHA, (born 1916), is estimated at £30,000 to £50,000. Moonlit Dance, by Colin Middleton, RHA, (1910-1984), also goes under the hammer.
The second part of the auction comprises 140 lots, including a collection of five works by Gerard Dillon made as Christmas greetings to his friend, writer Bill Naughton. These range in estimate from £300 to £2,000. Tor Mor, Tory Island by Derek Hill and Sean Keating's Study for the Boatmen of Aran Island are each expected to realise £4,000 to £6,000. Viewing will be at the Shelbourne Hotel, St Stephen's Green, Dublin, on Tuesday, April 30th, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Highlights went on view yesterday, Thursday, April 11th, until next Monday, April 15th, at the Rockefeller Centre, New York.
Mr Desmond FitzGerald, the Knight of Glin, will give a lecture at Christie's King Street, London, at 6.30 p.m. on May 14th entitled "Collecting Irish Art: A Personal View".
