A death mask of Patrick Kavanagh by the Cork sculptor Seamus Murphy comes up at Hegarty’s online auction in Bandon on January 31. Etched with the name of the poet and dated 1967 it is estimated at €6,000-9,000. The lot is accompanied by with a collection of personal correspondence between the the artists wife Maighread and well known collector Barbara Vance who was married to Douglas Vance, general manager of The Metropole Hotel in Cork from 1944 – 1985. Two other plaster examples of this mask have are recorded, one at The Writer’s Museum, Dublin, the second at The Patrick Kavanagh Centre, Monaghan.
