John Hogan (1800-1858), bust of Francis Sylvester Mahony (Fr. Prout). Click to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS MADE 8,500.
A marble portrait bust of Fr. Prout by Ireland’s most distinguished neo-classical sculptor John Hogan is among a great variety of treasures at Adams sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on May 30. Francis Sylvester Mahony (1804-1866) wrote under the pseudonym Fr. Prout and composed The Bells of Shandon, long included in The Oxford Book of English Verse. Elizabeth Barret Browning, who knew him in Rome, described Mahony as: “a most accomplished scholar and vibrating all over with learned associations and vivid combinations of fancy and experience – having seen all the ends of the earth and the men thereof, and possessing the art of talk and quotation to an amusing degree”. It is estimated at 4,000-6,000.
The auction of 148 lots includes major works by Louis le Broquy and William John Leech and a selection by distinguished Irish painters and sculptors including Paul Henry, Jack B. Yeats, Frank McKelvey, William Conor, Walter Osborne, Aloysius O’Kelly, Mainie Jellett, J.H. Craig, Maurice Wilks, Patrick Scott, Basil Blackshaw, Tony O’Malley, Rowan Gillespie, John Behan and F.E. MacWilliam.
See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for May 6 and May 8