A 1916 oil on panel by Jack B. Yeats was the top lot at James Adam sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on May 27. Roundstone, Connemara sold for a hammer price of 58,000 over a top estimate of 35,000. It had been bought by Oliver St. John Gogarty at an exhibition in 1918. It was one of a number of works which sold above the high estimate. Among the others were:
A Farmstead, Co. Armagh by John Luke made 40,000 over a top estimate of 30,000. Sir John Lavery’s A Street in Rabat sold for 38,000 over a top estimate of 15,000 and a Cubist landscape by Mary Swanzy sold for 20,000 over a top estimate of 12,000. George Russell’s Apparrell’d in Celestial Light, the catalogue cover lot, sold for 21,000 at hammer over a top estimate of 10,000. A sculpture by Rowan Gillespie – O’Carolan, Spirit of the Blind Harpist – made 17,000 over a top estimate of 7,000.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 19, 2015).