Jack Butler Yeats has done it again. Following the record price paid for a painting by him earlier this week, another Yeats painting yesterday made the second-highest figure paid for an Irish work.
Not quite beating the world record set at auction earlier this week - when his 1925 painting Singing `Oh, Had I the Wings of a Swallow' was sold for nearly £1 million - a piece entitled The Proud Galloper was sold by Christie's auctioneers yesterday for £990,629 (£870,500 sterling).
The Irish sale at Christie's came the day after Sotheby's put on a similar exhibition on Thursday. The Proud Galloper, bought by an anonymous bidder, becomes the second-most valuable painting by Yeats.
Mr Bernard Williams, who was in charge of the sale, described yesterday's auction as "the most successful and highest-totalling" Irish sale held at Christie's.
Overall the Irish sale made £5,542,697. It included Skating at Wengen by Sir John Lavery, which was sold for £606,500 sterling. Another record price was set for a piece by Sir William Orpen, A Mere Fracture, which was sold for £988,770.
The director of 20th century art at Christie's, Mr Jonathan Horwich, described The Proud Galloper as a dream come true for a Yeats enthusiast. The painting was an "emblem of Irish mythology and of Yeats himself. What more could you want? Sometime the head rules the heart in this but I think this time maybe the heart ruled the head."