THE Mealy's sale at Borleagh Manor, near Gorey in Co Wexford, next Tuesday is the first major country house sale of the year and it is sure to attract the crowds as a result. The house, which recently sold for around £1 million, is in very good order and so the fine furniture and objects, from four estates in total, are not let down by shabby surroundings, as is often the case in sales of this kind.
A 1920s portrait by Charles Spencelayh of one Mrs Rosie Levy - a patron of the artist - taking afternoon tea has a top estimate of £20,000. Mrs Levy was obviously a very wealthy woman and the artist had some extremely intricate details to record, from the finest black lace of her tea gown to the lustre of her magnificent diamond and emerald rings.
There are some other interesting pictures in the sale, including the historical painting of the wedding of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, with a lot of merrymaking going on in the background. It is estimated at £5,000-£7,000.
George Russell's (AE) sunshine dappled Children in the Woods carries a top estimate of £4,000.
For curiosity value, lot 420 is an unusual 19th century Florentine carved frame, its gilded vine leaves bordering an octagonal centre that has eight miniature portraits around a large classical grouping of a mother and children. A Grand Tour souvenir perhaps, it could fetch up to £3,000 on Tuesday.
The best of the furniture includes a Regency period, inlaid rosewood circular breakfast table (£8,000-£10,000); a George III Sheraton period sideboard with a brass railed back (£7,000-£9,000); a pair of 19th century Continental kingwood vitrines with gilt metal mounts (£4,000-£5,000); a late Georgian mahogany casket shaped cellaret (£2,000-£3,000); and a handsome pair of Victorian cast iron console tables with marble tops, signed James Yates Rotherham and dated 1842 (£2,500-£3,500).
There are several clocks, some good mirrors, occasional tables, workboxes, chandeliers and dozens of lots of porcelain and silver, as well as garden statuary. There is plenty to rummage through in the basement, including a Burroughs and Watts full size billiards table, which has a tempting lower estimate of £1,500.
Public viewing begins tomorrow, from 2 p.m.-5.30 p.m.
