Four record prices for Irish paintings, but 40 lots unsold

IN the heady days of the late 1990s when Irish art was new to the international market it seemed as if you could sell anything once it was from an Irish artist. It is not like that now.

There were four world records at the annual Irish Sale at Christie’s in London yesterday but 40 out of 105 lots remained unsold.

The Orpen, billed as the highlight of the day, failed to find a buyer during the sale, but was sold afterwards to an anonymous buyer for just over €1m. Overall, the sale of Irish art yesterday realised €4,943,715.

The international market for Irish art remains rock solid, though highly discriminating. The reality is that most of the pictures which did not sell failed the quality test that the very top levels of the market represented in these annual London sales demands. Top names on the unsold list included Orpen, O’Conor and le Brocquy.

The main record breaker yesterday was 18th century artist George Barret whose mountainous wooded landscape with figures made £320,000.

It went to a private Irish collector and was the top price of the day.

There was a new record for a Sean Keating, whose Feast of Bridget made a hammer price of £120,000.

Other records were set by a garden painting by former RHA president Thomas Ryan which sold for £6,500, and a polished bronze reclining bodyscape by Rowan Gillespie, which sold for £16,500.

Other sales included:

George Barret’s landscape (£365,650 with buyers premium included).

John Lavery’s Spanish Coast from Tangier (£251,650 including premium).

Jack Butler Yeats’s The Nimrod of the Railway Train (£251,650)

Walter Osborne’s Return of the Flock (£195,650)

Sotheby’s sale today promises more.

It is boosted by artworks collected by Dr Michael Smurfit and acquired by Chicago venture capitalists Madison Dearborn last September when they bought the Jefferson Smurfit Group. The collection being sold today is headed by a large Orpen portrait of Mrs Evelyn St George dating from 1906. There is speculation that Dr Smurfit will buy the painting back.