Serious collectors of fine Irish Georgian furniture will find much of interest at Adams annual Country House Collections on October 18 and 19. Viewing for this annual auction, which this year offers a particularly good selection of 18th century Irish furniture alongside fine examples of classical Irish art and silver, gets underway at Townley Hall near Drogheda next Friday. Among various highly covetable rarities is a c1730/40 George II Irish secretaire cabinet with a scrolled broken pediment inlaid with filigree marquetry and Comedia dell’Arte figures. Adams estimate it at €20,000-€30,000. There is a similar example in Irish Furniture by The Knight of Glin and James Peill. Another mid Georgian Irish secretaire bookcase with a more traditional straight front design, at one stage in the home of Lord Monteagle at Mount Trenchard House near Foynes, is estimated at €30,000-€40,000.An Irish George II mahogany side table in the manner of Richard Cranfield, was in the collection of Lord Leverhulme of Sunlight Soap fame before being sold in New York in 1926. It has an unusual design of corner truss legs and Greek key frieze and is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. A stunning Irish mahogany side table with an apron carved with scrolls and acanthus leaves and a centre scallop shell is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. So is a compartmental George III pier mirror notable for the blue and clear glass bead decoration so associated with Irish mirrors.There is a wonderful dining table measuring over five metres long on three centre quadropod supports. It is estimated at €30,000-€40,000. A set of 18 Regency dining chairs come with an estimate of €20,000-€30,000. Collectible pieces of Irish furniture such as a Killarney work centre table (€2,000-€3,000) are on offer at less stratospheric prices and not everything in the sale is Irish.A remarkable nine piece suite of Anglo-Indian gilt wood furniture, latterly at Prehen House in Derry, was included in the Castletown House, Co. Kildare inventory of 1893 as “Bombay” furniture. It is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. An example of fine English cabinet making is a George III knee hole desk after a design by Thomas Chippendale.Among the silverware is a pair of Dublin 1765 tureens by R. Holmes and a rare Irish George I bullet shaped teapot made in Cork in 1725 by William Clarke. There is a selection of gold boxes from the private collection of an Italian noblewoman. The sale contains two marble busts by the Irish sculptor Christopher Moore, one of the 3rd Duke of Leinster, one of William, 1st Baron Plunkett, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Both date to 1843.Garret Morphy (c1650-1716) is regarded as the first Irish born artist of stature. His 1696 portrait of Anne Boyle, 2nd Lady Mountjoy in a landscape holding a dove accompanied by Cupid, is estimated at €30,000-€40,000. There are two landscapes by James B. McCoy (c1750-1780), whose work is rare, and a double portrait by James Latham (1696-1747) considered the leading portrait painter in Dublin in the first half of the 18th century. A comparable example of this portrait of An Architect and his Son can be found in a family group at Fota.Adams advise that this spectacular sale ought to viewed in person and it can be seen in the elegant and neo-classical surroundings of Townley Hall for three days from next Friday. The live and online auction takes place at Adams St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, saleroom on October 18 and 19.
