Not since fashion designer Sybil Connolly's possessions were offered for sale last November has an Irish fine art auction held such interest for both the connoisseur and the merely curious. Yesterday in the ballroom of Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel, the contents of 25 Upper Fitzwilliam Street went under the hammer before a capacity audience.
The house had been home for more than half a century to the late Justice James Murnaghan and his wife, Alice, the latter remaining there after her husband's death in 1973 until she died earlier this year at the age of 103. Famously, in 1988, she was forced to suffer the indignity of being burgled by Martin Cahill, although more than half of the items stolen were subsequently recovered.
It is unlikely that the Murnaghans' electroplated cutlery held much attraction for Mr Cahill. But yesterday morning a collection of knives, forks and spoons expected to fetch no more than £1,000 was bought for £3,737. Almost from the auction's opening lot, the ballroom and bidding alike felt overheated as potential purchasers vied furiously with one another.
Lot No 2, for example, a fine but not necessarily exceptional George III mahogany longcase clock, soon surpassed its pre-sale estimate of £3,000 to £5,000 to make £11,500. Similarly an 18th-century Irish white marble bust of a man, who might have been Jonathan Swift, went beyond its top estimate of £10,000 to fetch £16,100.
Thereafter an air akin to madness crept into the proceedings. A late Victorian log-bin sold for £546 and a small brass fender (early 20th-century) made £805. Many of these bids were placed by private buyers who seemed eager to acquire some souvenir of the Murnaghan family home.
How else to explain not just the £42,550 paid for the late judge's Victorian mahogany desk, a figure almost three times its top estimate, but also the £550 made by a damask tablecloth?
"This place is full of barristers' wives determined to pick up something," said one experienced (and embittered) auction attender as another soignee blonde briefly stopped conversing with her neighbour to wave a hand in the direction of the auctioneers.
Private bidders always tend to slow down a sale, and this was certainly the case yesterday. A well-paced event should see up to 100 lots covered in an hour; the Murnaghan sale, however, moved at less than half that speed, with the result that there was no break for lunch and the morning session concluded at 3.15 p.m.
Beside auctioneers Fonsie and George Mealy, an electronic screen displayed the rapidly mounting prices.
Overseas bidders made their impact from early in the day, thanks to a line of 10 assistants taking bids by telephone. Their presence meant one of the finest items offered, a late 17th-century north Italian walnut, olivewood and marquetry commode (sold for £47,150), would be leaving this country after the sale concluded.
That conclusion came only at 7.30 p.m., when the last lot was bought and the total realised by the day reached £1,892,360.