Phillips of New Bond Street in London has two sales taking place next Tuesday, one of furniture and related items, the other of paintings, in both of which are a number of lots of Irish interest.
The morning sale, beginning at 10.30 a.m., includes this 18th century walnut crossbanded and marquetry cylinder bureau stamped on the interior to indicate that this piece had once formed part of the contents of Rathfarnham Castle, Co Dublin. It is expected to fetch £20,000-£30,000 sterling, while another lot in the same sale, a mid-19th century Killarney marquetry yewwood and crossbanded tripod circular table, carries the lower figure of £6,000-£8,000, owing to the centre having some damage.
The table is particularly interesting because its border has been inlaid with a motif of the Prince of Wales's feathers, suggesting this item might have been made at the time of the prince's visit to Ireland in the late 1850s. At 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, Phillips is holding an auction of 20th century British and Irish art, and among the latter group are examples of work by Jack B Yeats and Roderic O'Conor. The former picture, called The Coast of Mayo, is a relatively early oil first exhibited in 1911 and sold the following year to a private collector; it is now expected to fetch £6,000-£8,000. The O'Conor work, The Garden, on the other hand, dates from 1935, and has a pre-sale estimate of £12,000-£18,000.
There is also a very fine Walter Osborne dating from 1883, The Farmyard, Kerulec, near Le Poldu, once owned by Osborne's brother, with an estimate of £50,000-£70,000.
