JANUARY
AS always, a quiet month but with a few sales towards the end. An indication of the year ahead was given at the Mullens of Laurel Park auction. where some 900 lots made a total of £105,000, with many items surpassing their estimates; a set of copper saucepans expected to make £600, for example, went for £2,000. Adams of Blackrock, Dublin, also reported encouraging results from their first auction of 1996. The bestseller here was a mid 19th century partners desk, which sold for £3,700, while Town & Country's house contents sale at Sandymount saw a George IV walnut sofa table make £3,400.
The end of the month saw the unexpected and untimely death of Niall Fallon, for many years writer of this page. A former assistant editor of The Irish Times, Mr Fallon continues to be much missed.
FEBRUARY
THE month got off to an encouraging start with the sale of contents from John Westby's home, The Old Glebe, in Timoleague, Co Cork. Conducted by Hamilton Osborne King, this auction included two fine white marble busts by John Hogan of Bishop John Murphy of Cork and his brother, Daniel; dating from 1834, these, went for £7,800 and £7,500 respectively. In the same sale, an 18th century concave mahogany chest, originally made for Lulworth Castle, supposedly by Thomas Chippendale, went way beyond its low estimate of £1,000-£1,200 to fetch £7,500, and a walnut and fruitwood inlaid small chest, dating from around 1700, also soared past its estimate of £2,000 to sell for £6,500.
At Drum's of Malahide, a white marble chimneypiece inlaid with green and amber marble, believed to have been made by Bossi and originally coming from a house in Dublin's Merrion Square, also far surpassed its pre sale estimate of £8,000-£12,000 to make £23,000. And at Mealy's in Castlecomer, the resurgence of interest in bedroom suites was confirmed when an Adam style mahogany set of such furniture made £2,100, almost three times the price expected. Herman & Wilkinson sold a set of three 18th century walnut and parcel gilt stools for £6,600, an 18th century stick barometer by Dollard of London made £3,000 at Adams in Dublin and a bow front commode fetched £3,000 at Adams of Blackrock.
MARCH
WATERCOLOUR by Harry Clarke sold for £11,000 - more than twice its estimate - at James Adam. The picture, called The Swineherd and originally commissioned by publisher George Harrap as one of a series of illustrations for a book of fairy tales, was included in a sale of Irish art. Sean Keating's Man of the West made £16,000, James Arthur O'Connor's A View in the Devil's Glen £15,000 and James Le Jeune's Children Playing on a Beach £8,700. Meanwhile, at the de Vere auction in March, an unpublished short story by Brendan Behan, Christmas Eve in the Graveyard, caused a stir by making £5,000. Also in this sale, Charles Lamb's The TurfCutter, which had been expected to sell for £9,000-£12,000, eventually fetched £19,000 - an indication after a few years lull of renewed interest in Irish art - and Mary Swanzy's The Wedding almost doubled its pre sale estimate by reaching £6,400.
For furniture, the big sale of the month, was that conducted by Hamilton Osborne King at 24 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, the property of well known antiques dealer Michael Ramsden. There was keen interest in this auction of 700 odd lots, almost half of them from Mr Ramsden's own private apartments in the house. A total of £425,000 was realised by this sale, with the highest price of £17,000 being paid for an oval mahogany dining table dating from around 1800. A set of 10 mahogany dining chairs made £9,000 and a pair of early 19th century mahogany, satinwood and brass inlaid fold over top card, tables £7,500.
APRIL
THE year's first country house auction occurred in April, with the contents of Borleagh Manor, near Gorey, Co Wexford, being sold by Mealy's. Here, a George III Sheraton style inlaid mahogany sideboard sold for £10,000, while a pair of signed, early Victorian cast iron rococo style console tables fetched £8,000. £7,500 was paid for a pair of 19th century gilt, metal mounted kingwood vitrines and, among paintings, £4,000 for (AE) Russell's Children in the Woods.
At Mullen's, an 18th century Brussels tapestry depicting the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon more than doubled its estimate to make £6,600, and a set of 12 Victorian mahogany dining chairs with leather buttoned backs and seats went for £3,600 at Thomas Adams of Blackrock. A surprising £1,300 was paid at Hamilton Osborne King's sale in Blackrock, Dublin, for a 1913 presentation casket carrying the signatures of all the unionist MPs of the time, including Edward Carson; it had been expected to make at best a quarter of that figure.
MAY
A NEW world record for a painting by Jack B. Yeats was set at the sale of Irish pictures held by Sotheby's in London. The artist's A Farewell to Mayo, which had been bought in 1942 by Laurence Olivier for his wife, Vivien Leigh, sold for £730,000. Another Yeats in the same sale, Leaving the Raft, made an impressive £600,000, which was double its top estimate. The 573 lots in this auction made a total of £4,240,914, with Sir John Lavery's Japanese Switzerland making £150,000, Roderic O'Conor's The Rushing Stream £125,000 and a self portrait by Sir William Orpen £120,000.
Another Orpen self portrait, this time featuring a figure of Cupid, turned up a week earlier at Christie's sale of Irish art in London, where it sold for £135,000. Again at this auction, Yeats performed particularly well one canvas, A Walk Over, dating from 1914 soared well past its pre sale estimate of £30,000-£50,000 to sell for £185,000, while The Frontispiece, a later work by the same artist, made £90,000 (estimate £50,000-£70,000). And a Sean Keating oil illustrating Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, expected to make £5,000-£8,000 was bought for £13,500. Beatrice, Lady Glenavy's The Intruder went way past its estimate of £10,000-£15,000 to fetch £24,000.
Back in this country, a three day auction at Mealy's premises in Co Kilkenny included a number of important miniatures, such as Horace Hone's 1784 portrait of Letitia, Marchioness of Antrim, which went for £8,000, 10 times its lower estimate. Another Horace Hone portrait of four year old William Dawson made £3,800, as did a 1779 portrait by John Smart Senior of Colonel Hugh Cane. Among the furniture in this sale, an early Louis XVI secretaire made by French master cabinet maker Pierre Macret around 1775 and once owned by the Duchesse de Tallyrand sold for £11,000, as did a pair of late 19th century gilt mirrors.
JUNE
DESPITE the success of Irish paintings the previous month, the market demonstrated its volatile nature at the de Vere sale in the National Concert Hall, where vendors met with both good and disappointing surprises. Among the former, a Sean Keating picture of workers in a field, which John de Vere White entitled A Quiet Word, went for £28,000 - well over its £10,000-£15,000 estimate - and Paul Henry's Still Water also far surpassed expectations to fetch £15,000. Two Patrick Tuohy portraits did well too, selling for £9,000 and £6,000 respectively. However, both Roderic O'Conor's Girl With Red Waistcoat (estimate £20,000-£30,000) and Walter Osborne's Street Scene (estimate £13,000-£16,000) failed to find buyers on the night, as did two small canvasses by Jack B. Yeats formerly owned by the late Mary Lavin.
At James Adam, a desk once owned by architect Francis Johnson, designer of both the GPO and Aras an Uachtarain, was sold for £5,300 to a descendent of Johnson. A portrait of the architect in the same sale made £3,000, while a set of 21 colour aqua tint views of Dublin by James Malton fetched £5,400.
Mullen's of Laurel Park conducted a house contents auction at Dunderry Park, Co Meath where two Irish mahogany bookcases, dating from circa 1780 and both originally from Headfort House in Kells, sold for £9,000 and £8,750 respectively. In the same sale, a William IV mahogany sidetable made the day's best price, fetching £13,500.
JULY
LATE 18th century canoe shaped Irish glass bowl, part of a collection of such pieces formed earlier this century by the fourth. Marquess of Bute, sold for £29,000 at Christie's of London, where it had been expected to make only £3,000-£5,000. Also in this sale, four club shaped decanters, dating from circa 1820 and possibly of Cork origin sold for £1,970 and a composite part table service, possibly from Waterford, made £3,680.
At Powerstown House, Co Meath, former home of Mr and Mrs Raymond Keogh, Hamilton Osborne King conducted a well attended two day sale at which a pair of late 18th century Milanese walnut, tulipwood and marquetry chests went for £20,000. A late 18th century mahogany breakfront bookcase fetched £11,000 and an early 19th century mahogany ebony line sideboard sold for £9,000. At the same sale, a Donegal rug by Dun Emer which carried the very low estimate of £40-£60, eventually sold for £700.
Among a small collection of garden furniture at the James Adam salesrooms, a set of four Victorian cast iron urns made £7,600, while another pair of ovoid shaped urns made from the same period fetched £2,300. Also at James Adam, an extensive 19th century Louis XV style carved giltwood drawingroom suite went for £7,200 and a French Louis XV style kingwood vitrine £2,400.
AUGUST
ALTHOUGH as always a quiet month, that conducted by Mullen's of Laurel Park, where a record viewing attendance figure led to a Victorian circular clock by Donegan of Dublin making £1,550 (pre sale estimate £450-£650). At Hamilton Osborne King's auction in Blackrock, Dublin, a total of £60,000 was realised, with the best price of £2,600 being made by a Kathleen Fox still life.
SEPTEMBER
GEORGE Mealy & Sons held the first of the autumn's country house auctions at The Grange in Co Kilkenny, a nine bay, twostorey farmhouse which had been substantially extended in the 18th century. Home for the past 30 years to Dr Theresa White the Grange's contents included a handsome William IV library bookcase by Robert Strahan, which sold for £7,000 and a large Turkish style wool rug, possibly from the Abbeyleix workshops or else Donegal, which fetched £9,000. The top price of the day was £12,000, made by a 17th century oak tester bed.
A Dublin art dealer set a new record for Paul Henry when he paid £104,000 for the artist's The Potato Harvest at James Adam's Irish art sale; the previous top price made by Henry - £70,000 - had been set back in 1990, an indication of how long it has taken the picture market to regain the vigour it demonstrated in the last decade. While another Paul Henry painting, Village by the Lake, went for £25,000, a large Jack B. Yeats picture, Through the Streets to the Hills, was withdrawn without reaching its lower estimate of £35,000.
At the end of the month, another Paul Henry landscape, In Connemara, which had been originally bought from Combridge's gallery for £60 in 1931, went for £20,000 at the de Vere Irish art sale in the National Concert Hall. Approximately 90 per cent of the 200 lots sold here, with three Louis Le Brocquy tapestries going for £15,000, £12,000 and £6,200, and Yellow Nude with Pierrot and Tree by Gerard Dillon selling for £7,500.
At Mullen's of Laurel Park, an English dealer paid £8,000 for an Italian white marble classical group of figures which had been expected to sell for £1,000-£1,500.
The annual Irish Antique Dealers' Fair was held during September at the RDS, with some 40 dealers taking stands and the great majority of them reporting a strong resurgence of interest among private buyers, leading in many cases to increased sales during the event.
OCTOBER
EARLY in the month, Hamilton Osborne conducted a house sale attended by members of the Irish and international trade at Carrigacunna Castle in Mallow, Co Cork, where an 18th century walnut bureau sold for £16,000-£11,000 more than its top estimate. An 18th century Dutch mahogany bureau cabinet made £10,500, a 227 piece Ashworth dinner service sold for £9,000 and, among the Irish furniture in this sale, a mahogany bureau bookcase with three brass trellis filled doors went under the hammer at £6,000.
In London, a double page engraved and hand coloured map of Ireland by Baptista Boazio dating from 1612 sold for £3,500 at Bonhams. Back in Dublin, at James Adam a Regency sofa table sold for £3,500 and a pair of George II silver table candlesticks went way beyond their pre sale estimate of £800-£1,200 to go for £2,300. Adams of Blackrock, held a sale where the resurgence of interest in Paul Hen was again demonstrated, as the artist's Lakeside Cottages, expected to make £12,090-£16,000 actually fetched £19,000. Also in this auction, a portrait of Dorothy Wilde by Sir Joshua Reynolds sold for £4,000.
An extensive landscape in the manner of the English painter Stubbs, featuring a portrait of a huntsmaster together with hound and huntsman was sold for £11,000 at Dublin auctioneers Herman & Wilkinson.
NOVEMBER
THERE was disquiet in some quarters when it emerged that a number of item of furniture made specifically for Headfort House in Co Meath were being sold by Christie's in London in order to pay for the building's maintenance. The furniture in question included a pair of George III giltwood pier glasses based on a design by Robert Adam, a pair of Irish George III giltwood pier tables in the manner of Robert Adam and an Irish Regency giltwood and composition side table with a George II white and siena marble top. A last minute intervention by the Heritage Council meant that these items remained in the Republic, while a pair of antique globes which had once been in Strokestown House, Co Roscommon, and were also in the Christie's sale, were brought home after being purchased for £78,500 - considerably more, than their pre sale estimate of £15,000-£25,000 by the Westward Group, which now owns Strokestown.
At a two day auction at Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, conducted by Mealy's, more than £500,000 was spent, with a James Arthur O'Connor landscape effectively doubling its estimate to sell for £25,000. A large 19th century gilt and gesso wall mirror in the Chippendale manner, which had been expected to make £3,500-£5,000 in this sale, went for £15,000 and a large bronze study of a young woman by Sir Jacob Epstein (estimate £4,000-£5,000) sold for £7,000.
Swift's Heath, also in Co Kilkenny and the boyhood home of Dean Swift, was the setting for a house contents sale conducted by Sheppard's at the end of the month. A pair of Gainsborough portraits of architect and politician Thomas Prowse and his wife sold here for £20,000, while a pair of 19th century farmyard scenes by Edgar Hunt made £13,000. Among furniture, the day's best price of £12,000 was made by a pair of 19th century satinwood and marquetry side tables, and £10,500 was paid for a 19th century mahogany breakfront bookcase.
Back in London, at Phillips a Lavery oil study of Earl Morley addressing the House of Lords sold for £13,500 and at Christie's an oil by Jack B. Yeats called The Sisters made £150,000.
DECEMBER
AT the start of the month, Hamilton Osborne King held an auction devoted to silver which realised a total of £125,000. The highest price paid for a single lot was £17,500 for a set of eight circular cast salt cellars made by Philip Rundell of London in 1820; they came with eight spoons en suite from a different hand. An imposing presentation wine cooler on a pedestal by Odiot of Paris from 1830 sold for £13,000. At a sale of militaria at James Adam, a George III silver oval Irish Volunteer cross belt plate dating from 1798 made £1,300 and at a house contents sale held by Drums of Malahide a Georgian mahogany bureau bookcase went for £2,400. The last sale of the year conducted by Mullen's of Laurel Park realised £150,000, with £5,600 being paid for a statuary white mantelpiece originally from Straffan House, Co Kildare.
In New York, a number of equestrian pictures originally from Dromoland Castle, Co Clare, were sold by Christie's; these included a pair of paintings by the British 18th century artist Thomas Spencer, both selling for US$85,000, while another of his pictures fetched $178,500. In Dublin, there were two picture sales, at both of which Paul Henry continued to sell well. The artist's Reflections, Killarney, Co Kerry went for £20,000 at the de Vere auction in the National Concert Hall. At James Adams, Henry's Landscape Cottage by a West of Ireland Lake sold for £15,000. At de Vere's, Daniel O'Neill's Going to Mass went under the hammer at £8,000 and at Adams's his Figures in a Landscape, fetched £12,000.
