A new Irish record price for a work by Walter Osborne was set at auction yesterday in Dublin.
The oil is a portrait of two little girls, Dorothy and Irene Falkiner, and sold at the James Adam sale-rooms for £355,000.
Including the auctioneer's premium, the figure was £408,000. Bought by a London dealer, Mr Alan Hobart, of the Pyms Gallery, it had carried a pre-sale estimate of £150,000£250,000.
The world record for Osborne was set at Christie's in London last May when his Beneath St Jacques, Antwerp fetched £370,000 sterling (about IR £416,000).
Dorothy and Irene Falkiner's joint portrait depicting the girls in white fur-trimmed coats shows evidence of the artist's study of Spanish old masters such as Velasquez.
It was one of the last works painted by Osborne, who died in 1903. In that year the portrait was exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy, having already been shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1902. Osborne also painted the children's mother, Mrs C.Litton Falkiner and their grandfather, Sir Frederick Falkiner.
Another example of Osborne's work set a new world record at last December's Irish art sale conducted by Adam's when it made £300,000.
Irish art seems to be performing particularly well of late. On Tuesday a new world record was set for Sir John Lavery when his The Bridge at Grez sold for £1.3 million; yesterday in the James Adam sale-rooms, Lavery's portrait of a young woman, expected to make £6,000£8,000, sold for £27,000.