Irish paintings put €40m gloss on art sales
This was up about 10% on the previous year and was helped by the fact that several quality paintings came on the market, such as part of the Smurfit corporation's collection and the contents of Lissadell House.
Around €20m of the total amount came from auction houses in Ireland, said Ian Whyte of Whyte's Auctions, who collated the figures.
"It is a reasonable amount of money and it may be more because there will be a lot of art sold through private sales from one collector to another," Mr Whyte said.
"It was a tough year in parts. In other years we would sell more, the trouble is people are not selling. There are more buyers than sellers at the moment as people have nowhere to put the proceeds," he said.
The three big Irish auction houses James Adam, Whyte's and De Vere's sold just over €10m worth of paintings between them out of €20m sold in Ireland.
However, due to the scarcity of top quality works by the Irish masters few record prices were set.
"We would hope to see the growth continuing. We are all finding it very difficult to get good pictures to sell.
"Obviously there are some people who are having to sell, either downsizing their collections because they have no room or through estates of people who have died.
"But this year there will be some big collections. The Smurfit collection is being sold off gradually.
"There are also one or two other big lots coming up. I know there will be some major Yeats work coming up and several Louis le Brocquys," Mr Whyte said.
He added that auction houses are seeing more young people become interested in Irish art.
The upper end of the art market was dominated by Christie's and Sotheby's, with Sotheby's selling the most expensive Irish painting of the year William Orpen's Mrs St George for €1.17m.
Mr Whyte added that at the more affordable end of the market, new records for paintings were established with a work by Robert Ballagh going for €30,000.
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