WHAT ARE the odds on that? A series of sketches of horse- racing by Jack B Yeats have been discovered behind the canvas of a ruined painting which was about to be thrown on a skip in the south of England.
The sketches were found recently by a man who had inherited the contents of a house from a distant relative.
They have been valued at up to £30,000 and will be auctioned by Christie’s in London next week.
Brandon Lindberg, an expert in Irish art at Christie’s, said the man, while clearing the house, came upon “an old framed print of a Victorian church in a frame which was falling apart”.
He was about to throw it away when “it came apart in his hands and behind it was a broken mount with the five watercolour sketches”. The man “didn’t put two and two together” at first but then noticed a faint signature by Yeats. After doing some research, he contacted Christie’s and was “stunned and gobsmacked” when told of their value.
The sketches, each measuring about 17cm x 18cm, will go on display in London on Saturday before going under the hammer as one lot. They have been given an estimate of £20,000-£30,000 (€22,400- €33,600) and will feature in Christie’s sale of Victorian and British impressionist art next Wednesday.
Mr Lindberg said they dated probably from 1897 and were among the first examples of the artist’s drawings in colour. During that year, Yeats switched from illustrating in black and white to working in watercolour. He was then living in Devon.
Yeats (1871-1957) is one of Ireland's best-known and most collectable artists. Last week, one of his oil paintings, The Westering Sun, made €135,000 at an Adam's auction in Dublin – the highest price paid for a work of art in Ireland so far in 2011.
The all-time record price paid for a Yeats painting is just over £1.2 million for The Wild Onesat Sotheby's in London in 1999.
