For the second time in 10 days, a Jack B Yeats painting was the top-selling lot in a Dublin art auction. On Wednesday evening at Adam's "Important Irish Art" sale in the St Stephen's Green saleroom, Hearing the Nightingale, a 1936 painting by Jack B Yeats which depicts a London scene, the view from Richmond Hill, sold for €42,500 – comfortably exceeding the estimate of €25,000-€35,000.

The painting was on the market for the first time in 40 years. Overall, Kieran O’Boyle of Adam’s said demand was “very strong” and 85 per cent of the 180 paintings and sculptures in the auction had sold for a total of €680,000.

Among other significant lots: Woman And Child Feeding Hens by Frank McKelvey (which had featured on the cover of the catalogue) made €16,000 (€10,000-€15,000); Rock Island Light, Co Cork by John Doherty €10,500 (€6,000-€8,000); The Bog at Derravaragh, Co Westmeath by Erskine Nicol €8,000 (€5,000-€7,000); Ballinasloe Fair by Cecil Maguire €6,000 (€7,000-€10,000); Canal, Venice by Letitia Hamilton €4,200 (€4,000-€6,000);'Study of Four Men, In Discussion by Sean Keating €4,500 (€4,000-€6,000). A painting by Beatrice Salkeld (the wife of writer Brendan Behan) titled Boy With Dog and described by Adam's as a "curiosity", sold for €550 (€500-€800).