Brocas portraits make €29,000

A COLLECTOR in London bought the top lot at Whyte’s sale of important Irish art in Dublin on Monday evening.

A pair of Curragh portraits of racehorses Freney and Roller by William Brocas, an Irish 19th century portrait and landscape painter, made €29,000 over an estimate of €30,000-€40,000 in a sale which grossed €450,000.

Internet bidders accounted for a quarter of the bids and 20% of lots sold. Bidders were from Ireland, the UK, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, UAE, US, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia.

A collector in Illinois bought William Conor’s Bringing in the Turf for €21,000; A Connemara Landscape by Paul Henry sold for €13,000 to a collector in London; a Co. Cork collector paid €12,000 for Tony O’Malley’s The Island of Arawaks and a collector in Dublin paid €12,000 for William Crozier’s Midnight in Summer.