THERE were quite a number of surprises mostly pleasant afternoon's Irish picture sale held by Christie's on its London premises. The most unexpected price in an auction, which eventually totalled £1.7 million sterling, was the £185,000 paid for a Jack Yeats oil dating from 1914.

A Walk Over, which depicts the finish of a horse race at Drumcliff, Co Sligo, carried an estimate of £30,000-£50,000.

Other Yeats pictures fared just as well, even if none of them surpassed their estimates by quite such a large figure. The Frontispiece, painted more than 30 years after A Walk Over, made £90,000 (estimate £50,000-£70,000), The Flash Captain reached £31,000 (£12,000-£18,000) and The Flapping Meeting, from the mid 1920s, sold for £125,000 (£40,000-£60,000).

On the other hand, Autumn, which dates from 1945 and carried a top estimate of £60,000, only reached £52,000, and the earlier High Spring Tide (Rosses Point, Sligo) was sold for its lowest estimate of £60,000. All of which suggests that the market for Yeats is erratic and depends entirely on appreciation of individual pictures.

Similarly, the important 1910 self portrait with a figure of Cupid by Orpen, despite being expected to make £150,000-£200,000 in the end went for £135,000, and Osborne's La Rue de l'Apport, Dinan, dating from 1883, settled at its bottom estimate of £25,000.

However, there were plenty of other paintings which comfortably passed their original estimates, including a Sean Keating oil illustrating Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, which was bought for £13,500 after being expected to make £5,000-£8,000.

A fantastical scene called The Intruder by Beatrice, Lady Glenavy, which had an estimate of £10,000-£15,000 actually sold for £24,000. And many of the Laverys also made a strong showing.

A port scene called A Wet Day, Concarneau, estimated to fetch £15,000-£25,000, sold for £33,000, his La Dame aux Perles reached £75,000 (estimate £30,000-£50,000) and a Portrait of Phyllis in a White Dress sold for £30,000 (£12,000-£18,000).

Finally, a charming tempera on board by John Luke, The Locks at Edenderry found a buyer at £85,000, just a little more than its top estimate of £80,000.

. The above prices do not include the auction house's premium.