'Missing' Yeats paintings expected to fetch €155,000 at Canadian auction

Two paintings by Jack Butler Yeats, which left Ireland 80 years ago when purchased by a Canadian art dealer, are to be auctioned later this year.

The Mail Car, Early Morning and The Boat Builder have both been in the same family since 1923, when they were bought by the University of Toronto's dean of arts, Mr Alfred Tennyson DeLury, an early Yeats patron and Irish scholar.

Never viewed outside the family for more than half a century, the paintings were in danger of being lost or destroyed before local auctioneer, Heffel, traced them to the dean's great-nephew, Mr Robert DeLury, in the Canadian west coast city of Victoria.

"After my great-uncle's death, the paintings were stored in a barn at the family farm north of Toronto and forgotten," said Mr DeLury. "My aunt remembered the paintings hanging on the wall of the family home and sent my father and me to look for them. If it hadn't been for her, they might have been lost for ever."

The Boat Builder (signed 1923) is based partially on Yeats's drawing, Boat-Building at Carna, illustrating an article by the playwright J.M. Synge on the Galway boat-builders in the Manchester Guardian, June 28th, 1905. The scene depicts two men working on a boat, watched by an old man sitting in a chair while a young woman approaches from a cottage below.

The Mail Car, Early Morning (signed 1920) depicts the artist's memory of a visit to Ballina, Co Mayo, in 1905, in the company of Synge. The painting shows the mail car approaching, with Synge - in the right foreground, with a coat over his arm - starting towards it.

Auctioneers David and Robert Heffel said they had been pursuing the paintings since the 1980s, after seeing a reference to their owner in an "Art of Ontario 1930" show catalogue.

The paintings will be auctioned in Toronto on November 27th, and people can bid by telephone or follow the action live at www.heffel.com Each painting has been given a "conservative" price tag of $125,000 (€110,000) to $175,000 (€155,000).

"We will get international bidding and you can bet any money they'll go for more than that," said a spokesman for the auctioneers.

"Irish art is one of the hottest markets in the world at the moment. Its resale value is extremely good."

Several works by Yeats have fetched more than €1 million in recent years.