A painting depicting the Royal Yacht Squadron escorting Queen Victoria to Cork Harbour in 1849 sold for a hammer price of 28,000 at Woodwards auction in Cork today. It is by the Cobh based painter George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson, and it will return to Cobh, where it is to be part of a private collection. Based in Cobh George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson responded enthusiastically to the brief visit, after the which Cove was renamed Queenstown, reverting to Cobh in the late 1920’s. He provided pictorial evidence of the visit, which is extremely rare. Last sold for 40,000 the work had an estimate of 25,000-35,000 this time around.
Woodwards reported a highly successful auction. Three pencil and wash drawings by the Cork artist William Harrington, whose work is not widely known outside Cork but whose early work from the 1960’s and ’70’s is especially keenly collected locally, made hammer prices of 2,600, 2,500 and 2,500 respectively. They included The Apple Seller, illustrated below.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 18, 2016).
George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson – The Royal Yacht Squadron escorting Queen Victoria to Cork Harbour, 1849 sold for 28,000 at hammer.
William Harrington – The Apple Seller sold for 2,500 at hammer.