A stunning array of Irish pictures from the 18th to the 20th centuries as well as Georgian and Regency furniture and decorative arts will come under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London on November 10. If there is a certain sense of deja vu about the auction of contents from 44 Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin it is because this sale was first scheduled to take place in London last March. The first lockdown landed and it was re-scheduled to November just in time for lockdown number two to take off. Things are different this time round, the auction world has adjusted spectacularly well to the online model and there is a zoom boom.
Irish art has fared very well in times of pandemic and this sale offers an exceptional William Scott and five works by Yeats. The paintings by Yeats include The Showground Revisited, painted in 1950 (£150,000-250,000 / €170,000-282,000) and Young Men, painted in 1929 (£150,000-250,000 / €170,000-282,000). The Scott, entitled Deep Blues, has an estimate of £300,000-500,000 / €339,000-565,000.There is art by Daniel Maclise, George Barret, Paul Henry, Roderic O’Conor, George Mullins, James Arthur O’Connor, John Butts, james Humbert Craig, Jeremiah Hoad, Louis le Brocquy, Erskine Nichol, William Sadler, William Ashford, Douglas Alexander, Nathaniel Hone, Harry Kernoff and others including a set of 25 Views of Dublin by James Malton.
These were all shown in Dublin a year ago as a curtain raiser to the November 2019 Irish art sale at Sotheby’s. Serious punters who viewed them then will have no trouble vividly remembering them now.
The elegant Dublin townhouse, home to the late property developer Paddy Kelly, was a wonderful setting for these paintings and antique furniture pieces like a pair of Irish mirrors and a pair of demi lune side cabinets in the manner of the Dublin maker William Moore. On offer too is a c1820 Irish Regency serving table, a set of four Irish hall chairs c1815 and a matched pair of table globes by Cary. A Victorian silver gilt replica of the Ardagh Chalice has an estimate of £3,000-£5,000. An avid collector, Patrick Kelly (1942-2011) recognised the tradition of Irish painting from the eighteenth century through to the twentieth, complemented with fine Georgian and Regency furniture, silver and decorative arts, amassed from auctions and dealers over three decades.
