Sir William Orpen, Portrait of Lady Idina Wallace (click on image to enlarge).
Painted in 1915 Sir William Orpen’s portait of Lady Idina Wallace, characterised as The Bolter in three novels by Nancy Mitford, sold for £962,500 at Sotheby’s in London this afternoon. It had been estimated at £800,000-1.2 million.
At the same British and Irish Art sale William Scott’s Blue and White sold for £482,500. The Bog Road by Paul Henry and Loiterers by Walter Frederick Osborne each sold for £62,250. Two works by Louis le Brocquy, Child Against a White Wall and The Family sold respectively for £52,250 and £50,oo0. The top estimate for each was £50,000. A le Broquy Tapestry, The Garlanded Goat, failed to find a buyer.
Sotheby’s auction of British and Irish art realized £7,178,252. The top lot was Proserpine, a defining image of the Pre-Raphaelite movement by Dante Gabriel Rosetti which sold for £3,274,500, a record for the artist at auction. Orpen’s portrait was the second most expensive lot in the auction. It was the strongest and highest price for an early 20th century Irish picture since 2007 and the second highest price for a work by the artist at auction.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for October 29, 2013 and July 12, 2013).