A portrait by Sir William Orpen of his mistress's daughter has become the most expensive Irish picture sold at auction.
Gardenia St George with Riding Crop, painted in 1912, made £1,983,500 sterling at Sotheby's in London yesterday when it was bought by an American collector.
The picture was just one lot among almost 300 in a sale of Irish art which totalled some £7 million, the largest sum made at such an event. The previous record for Irish art at auction was £1,321,500, set in December 1998 by Sir John Lavery's The Bridge at Grez. Until now, the best price for an Orpen was £716,500, paid at Christie's three years ago for A Mere Fracture. While highly regarded, Gardenia St George with Riding Crop had not been expected to fetch anything like the sum realised. Its pre-sale estimate was £400,000-£600,000. It is one of a series of portraits of Gardenia St George commissioned annually by her mother from Orpen between 1908 and 1916.
Mrs Evelyn St George, a wealthy American married to an Irishman, was eight years older and a foot taller than the artist with whom she began an affair in the year he first painted her daughter. The portrait sold yesterday was produced in the months following the birth of Vivien, the child of Orpen and Mrs St George.
Three other records were set during the same sale. Harry Kernoff's In Davy's Parlour Snug: Self-Portrait with Davy Byrne and Martin Murphy doubled its upper pre-sale estimate of £60,000 to go for £119,000. The previous best price for a Kernoff work was set a year ago when a view of Davy Byrne's from Duke Street sold at Sotheby's for £80,500.
Andrew Nicholl's View of Howth, Co Dublin through a Poppy Field went for £25,800, some £5,500 better than any other Nicholl picture at auction.
A portrait of William Fitzmaurice, second Earl and 21st Baron of Kerry made £75,000 by the 18th century artist Stephen Slaughter; until now, the top sum paid for a work by this painter was £42,000.