IS ANOTHER €1 millionYeats in the offing? This morning a painting titled Jazz Babiesby Jack B Yeats goes on view at Adam's, 26 St Stephen's Green, Dublin, ahead of its auction there on Monday evening. The estimate? Ranging from €500,000-€800,000.
The sale will be closely watched by every collector of Irish art. In September, Adam's offered another painting by the artist, A Fair Day, Mayo,with a similar estimate, which made €1 million – an Irish auction record.
Adam’s said the auction features “probably the finest collection of pictures offered in years”. Highlights include other “fresh- to-the-market” paintings by Yeats and work by other important Irish artists including Paul Henry, Mainie Jellett, Harry Clarke, William Conor, Gerard Dillon and Seán Keating.
Fourteen of the paintings come from Beaulieu House in Co Louth and are “being reluctantly sold to finance the continuing restoration and maintenance of the house and gardens”.
They were originally collected by Sidney Waddington (who inherited the house in 1939) and her husband Nesbit, who was the manager of the Aga Khan’s stud farms in Ireland.
They include another Jack B Yeats, titled Evening, Kildare(€30,000-€50,000) which once belonged to George Bernard Shaw, and a painting called Samoaby Mary Swanzy, an Irish artist who spent some time in the eponymous South Pacific island in the 1920s.
Described as “a lush Gauguin-esque view of a banana grove”, the oil-on-canvas is estimated at €20,000-€30,000.
Another to watch is a painting titled Fishing in the Westby Norah McGuinness (€18,000-€25,000), which was bought at the RHA exhibition in 1974 by president Erskine Childers and hung at Arás an Uachtaráin in the Phoenix Park until his untimely death later that year.
Paul Henry's Wind Blown Trees(€80,000-€120,000), which is well known from numerous appearances in retrospective exhibitions, should fly out of the saleroom. However, fans of this artist might be even more interested in another painting that has never been exhibited.
According to Adam's auctioneer David Britton, A Roadside Cottage(€60,000-€80,000) was bought by the vendor's father "on a trip from the United Kingdom to the Horse Show at the RDS" in the 1930s.
“He travelled to Ireland annually for the Horse Show from 1935 to 1939 and each year he took home a Paul Henry.”
The most intriguing item in the sale is not a painting but a gold pocket watch which features in James Joyce's Ulysses.
The 18-carat watch on a chain is being sold by descendants of John O’Connell, the caretaker of Glasnevin Cemetery who is described wearing it in chapter six of the novel. The estimate is €8,000- €12,000.
