Corbould works may fetch up to £30,000 each
More than 40 years of collecting comes up for sale in Adare, Co Limerick, on Tuesday. The contents of St Joseph's, the Old Presbytery, assembled by its owner, Mrs Zenia Atkins and her late husband, will be auctioned by Loughlin Bowe in association with Sotheby's at the Dunraven Arms. The 600-plus lots range in value from £40 to £30,000, with a total of £300,000 expected from the one-day event. The house, designed in 1872 by James Joseph McCarthy, was bought by the Atkinses seven years ago. Two 1893 oils by Edward Henry Corbould - a favourite artist of the Prince Consort and painting and drawing instructor to the royal children - are likely to be the highlight of the sale. Hail the Conquering Hero and A Procession are each expected to make £20,000-£30,000. A picture by James Lynwood Palmer of two horses being held by a groom beneath oak trees has an estimate of £10,000-£15,000. Among furniture, is a yew wood, laburnum and satinwood writing desk with typical Killarney decoration; its seemingly-low estimate of £350-£450 is described by Loughlin Bowe as "extremely realistic," as therefore is a set of four laburnum wood dining chairs, made in Ireland in 1770, which are thought to be worth £1,000-£1,500.
A higher estimate is being quoted for a Japanese export lacquer cabinet. This is expected to fetch £2,000-£3,000, while a mahogany partner's library desk carries an estimate of £4,500-£6,500. Other good pieces of furniture include a set of six rosewood dining chairs dating from around 1810 (£8,000-£10,000), a pair of Irish mahogany console tables, circa 1825 (£3,000-£4,000), a Regency mahogany extending dining table (£4,000-£6,000) and a Queen Anne armchair decorated with gros and petit-point needlework panels (£1,800-£2,500).
Copy of Proclamation of Republic for £25,000
In an especially busy week, the sale of rare books, manuscripts and ephemera being held by Mealy's should not be overlooked. This two-day auction takes place at Dublin's Tara Tower Hotel and includes an authenticated copy of the original Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Believed to be one of the few remaining examples in private hands, it has an estimate of £18,000-£25,000. Other lots in the 1,500-plus sale include a long run of Erskine Childers' clandestine newspaper, The Irish Bulletin (£2,000) and a manuscript notebook of Terence MacSwiney (circa £200). There are further items of Irish interest, such as a collection of glass slides of the Waterford area (around £1,000), a drawing of a cricket match at Coole by Robert Gregory (up to £1,000) and what is believed to be a contemporary drawing of Robert Emmet in the dock (£600-£800). George Catlin's 1844 North American portfolio, showing hunting scenes and amusements in the Rocky Mountains and on the prairies, is expected to fetch around £10,000, and there is a large selection of colour-plate books, travel volumes, atlases and works of botanical interest. The Mealy's sale takes place on Wednesday and Thursday.
John Turner painting may fetch £4,000-plus
Irish paintings come up for sale next Wednesday at John Ross & Co of Belfast, where the 225 lots include work by Frank McKelvey, J.H. Craig, Percy French, Erskine Nicol and Maurice Wilks. Expected to do particularly well are an oil by John Turner of an unemployed man on the streets of Belfast (£4,000-£5,000), a Frank McKelvey called The Potato Pickers (£5,000-£6,000), a view of Cushendun by Maurice Wilks (£3,500-£4,000) and a watercolour by Percy French (£2,000-£2,500).
Georgian, Edwardian furniture in Charleville
Charleville auctioneer, P.J. O'Gorman will be selling around 250 lots of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian furniture tomorrow, starting at 2 p.m. Among the pieces worth noting is a Regency kneehole desk (£1,500-£2,000) and a sofa table from the same period (£3,500-£5,000).
Scottish bookcase among house contents lots
Town & Country auctioneers will be holding a house contents auction on the premises of Mount Glandore in Dun Laoghaire tomorrow at 2 p.m. Lots include a Scottish Victorian, mahogany, three-door bookcase, a Victorian mahogany D-end dining table (£3,500-£4,500) and a George IV brass dial long-case clock.
