Including paintings from The Jacqueline and Vincent O’Brien Collection and the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
James O’Halloran BA FSCSI FRICS DIRECTOR j.ohalloran@adams.ie
Stuart Cole MSCSI MRICS MANAGING DIRECTOR s.cole@adams.ie
Nicholas Gore Grimes DIRECTOR nicholas@adams.ie
Amy McNamara BA MA ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR amymcnamara@adams.ie
Niamh Corcoran BA FINE ART DEPARTMENT niamh@adams.ie
Adam Pearson BA SALEROOM CURATOR a.pearson@adams.ie
Ronan Flanagan HDip WAREHOUSE MANAGER r.flanagan@adams.ie
Eamon O’Connor BA FINANCIAL DIRECTOR e.oconnor@adams.ie
Including paintings from the Jacqueline and Vincent O’Brien Collection and the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection.
AUCTION
Wednesday 4th December 2024 at 6.00pm
26 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2. Ireland , D02 X665 +353 (01)6760261 adams.ie FOLLOW US @Adams1887 #Adams.Auctioneers
ALL AUCTION VIEWINGS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Friday 29th November 10.00am–5:00pm
Saturday 30th November 1.00pm– 6.00pm
Sunday 1st December 1.00pm – 6.00pm
Monday 2nd December 10.00am–5:00pm
Tuesday 3rd December
10.00am–5:00pm
Wednesday 4th December 10.00am–4:00pm
Please refer to the Buying At Auction section in this catalogue, or adams.ie for further details on bidding in this auction, including absentee bidding.
26 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2. Ireland +353 1 676 0261
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London 18th – 20 th November
The Maas Gallery 6 Duke Street St James’s, London SW1Y 6BN
Belfast 14th – 15th November
The Ava Gallery Clandeboye Estate, Bangor, Co. Down, BT19 1RN
These are shown below each lot in this sale. All amounts shown are in Euro. The figures shown are provided merely as a guide to prospective purchasers. They are approximate prices which are expected, are not definitive and are subject to revision. Reserves, if any, will not be any higher than the lower estimate.
All purchases must be paid for no later than Friday 6th December 2024. Please contact a member of staff to arrange collection/delivery of your purchases. Auctioneers commission on purchases is charged at the rate of 25% (inclusive of VAT). Terms: Strictly cash, card, bankers draft or cheque drawn on an Irish bank. Cheques will take a minimum of eight workings days to clear the bank, unless they have been vouched to our satisfaction prior to the sale, or you have a previous cheque payment history with Adam’s. We also accept payment by all major credit and debit cards. Please note a surcharge will apply of 2% of the invoice total for non-EU card types. For payments by bank transfer please ensure all bank charges are paid in addition to the invoice total, in order to avoid delays in the release of items. Goods will only be released upon clearance through the bank of all monies due. Artists Resale Rights (Droit de Suite) is not payable by purchasers.
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Lots marked * are to be sold whilst subject to Temporary Admission (Import) regulations. For purchasers based in the Republic of Ireland - the hammer price will be subject to import VAT at the reduced rate, currently 13.5%, and the Buyer’s Premium will be subject to VAT at the standard rate, currently 23%. For purchasers outside of the Republic of Ireland, please contact our Accounts Department for further details.
It is up to the bidder to satisfy themselves prior to buying as to the condition of a lot. In relation to Condition Reports, whilst we make certain observations on the lot, which are intended to be as helpful as possible, references in the condition report to damage or restoration are for guidance. The absence of such a reference does not imply that an item is free from defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of any others. The condition report is an expression of opinion only and must not be treated as a statement of fact. Please ensure that condition report requests are submitted before 12 noon on Tuesday 3rd December 2024 as we cannot guarantee that they will be dealt with after this time.
We are happy to execute absentee or written bids for bidders who are unable to attend or bid online themselves and can also arrange for bidding to be conducted by telephone. However, these services are subject to special conditions (see conditions of sale in this catalogue). All arrangements for absentee and telephone bidding must be made before 5pm on the day prior to sale. Bidding by telephone may be booked on all lots. Early booking is advisable as availability of lines cannot be guaranteed.
We would like to acknowledge, with thanks, the assistance of Dr Roisin Kennedy, Jonathan Benington, William Laffan, Dr. Joseph McBrinn, Aidan Dunne, Prof. Kenneth McConkey, Dickon Hall, Julian Campbell, Niamh Corcoran, Brendan Rooney, Robert O’Byrne, and Hilary Pyle in the preparation of this catalogue.
7. ALL LOTS ARE BEING SOLD UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF SALE AS PRINTED IN THIS CATALOGUE AND ON DISPLAY IN OUR SALEROOMS AND ON OUR WEBSITE.
The painter Jack B. Yeats and the trainer Vincent O’Brien shared a unique relationship with horses that won them both international acclaim.
The exquisitely painted horses of Yeats gallop, canter, and dance from some of his most famous work, while O’Brien’s bluebloods of the turf dominated the racecourses of the world.
It was fitting then, that when Vincent and his wife Jacqueline, a photographer and writer of distinction, adorned the walls of their internationally famous Ballydoyle Stud in Co. Tipperary, their expertly trained eyes turned to the work of another master, Jack B. Yeats.
Now more than half a century later four Yeats oils from their collection, all beautifully crafted and two dominated by horses, are being offered for sale: Horsemen, He Reads a Book, Willie Reilly, and The Window with a view over the Town. Also, from their collection comes a large, colourful, and poignant oil painting, Old John’s Cottage, Connemara by William Orpen, which evokes the interior of a humble thatched cottage in Co. Mayo with two sad but stoic peasants, silently lamenting the loss of a grand-daughter to emigration. These five works from the Vincent and Jacqueline O’Brien collection reflect something of the Ireland the artist and the horse trainer inhabited during their lifetimes.
“Growing up in the countryside, Jack spent many of his formative years surrounded by horses, a symbol so frequently used by him it has become known as the Yeats’ horse” wrote Jenny O’Gorman in the art journal HASTA. “Over the course of his life, he captured the unique character and energy of these animals.”
If Yeats captured their movement in oils, O’Brien harnessed that energy, his singular understanding of thoroughbreds making him the outstanding horse trainer of the 20th century. As well as their unerring eye, both maintained a meticulous attention to details, Yeats carefully cataloguing almost all his art works and O’Brien recording in minute detail the daily lives of the horses he kept in training from the moment they
arrived to their departure to stud. Vincent O’Brien grew up among horses and such was his facility with them that he became known as ‘The Master’ of Ballydoyle, the stables in Co. Tipperary where he created an international centre of excellence.
Born in Churchtown, Co. Cork in 1917 O’Brien grew up at a time when horses were still part of Irish landscape, bearing the burden of a working farm. But on Sunday the young O’Brien was transformed, riding out to hunts and Point to Point meetings as an amateur jockey.
Then came his career as a trainer, launched in 1943, which over the following half century saw him walk away with the glittering prizes of the turf at home and abroad.
From his first winner, Good Days (1944), onwards he dominated National Hunt racing winning three Cheltenham Gold Cups with Cottage Rake in 1948, 1949 and 1950, followed by three successive Aintree Grand Nationals, Early Mist (1953), Royal Tan (1954) and Quare Times (1955).
In an astonishing pivot he switched to flat racing, winning numerous classics including the Epsom Derby, the Blue Ribband of horseracing, six times with Larkspur, Sir Ivor, Nijinsky, Roberto, The Minstrel and Golden Fleece, as well as three Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
“Ireland at that time was where the English bought their horses” said his wife, Jacqueline, “but to think of a horse actually being trained here and brought over to England to win their best races was absolutely unheard of.”
With success and wealth came the opportunity to acquire the artworks of Jack. B. Yeats, who was as brilliant and prolific a painter as O’Brien was as a horse trainer. The special eye they had for horses was the bond that united them.
Born in 1871 the younger brother of the poet William Butler Yeats, Jack B. Yeats “always loved horses” wrote Thomas McGreevey in a catalogue for Tate Britain, describing several of his horse paintings, before referring to the “incomparable mastery with which he can capture their fine artic -
ulations, their nervous grace, their spirit.”
The meticulous attention to detail of artist and trainer, their prolific output and their success and acclimation unite O’Brien and Yeats in the public imagination.
“Yeats displayed a great affection for horses throughout his career. Horses feature prominently in his work, from his earliest watercolours of life in the west of Ireland to his later, more esoteric paintings” say the National Gallery of Ireland, referencing another Yeats painting in their collection.
Jack B. Yeats “received many public honours during his lifetime, being acknowledged as the greatest artist of the first half of the 20th century and a strong influence on his contemporaries” says his citation in Modern Irish Lives (Gill & Macmillan), something that could equally be said of Vincent O’Brien.
It is often forgotten that Jack B. Yeats also won Ireland’s first Olympic medal in 1924, a bronze, for his painting The Liffey Swim, when art was then part of the Olympics Games.
The two ‘horse paintings’ acquired by Vincent O’Brien are the richly coloured Horsemen (1947) and He Reads a Book (1953), described by Yeats expert Hilary Pyle in her catalogue of his work, as a “delightful image…arising from some incident witnessed by the artist.” This rare combination also chimes with Jacqueline O’Brien’s consuming interest in books, writing and photography.
The other paintings from the Vincent and Jacqueline O’Brien collection are the early Yeats, Willie Reilly (1902) which shows a ballad singer on stage, most likely singing The Coleen Bawn ( An Cailín Bán). The painting was originally bought by American/Irish lawyer, John Quinn, a patron of the Yeats’ – poet and artist - and of James Joyce, from who he acquired the manuscript of Ulysses.
The fourth Yeats in the collection, The Window with a View of the Town (1951) shows a man and boy looking towards a distant church steeple and was originally purchased by the Cork born
heiress, Mabel Spiro, who was the second wife of Dublin and London gallery owner, Victor Waddington.
The four Yeats paintings, along with the Orpen, hung in Ballydoyle House until Vincent O’Brien retired from training and his place was taken by Aidan O’Brien (no relation) in 1996. He has since emulated ‘The Master’ as a horse trainer of unparalleled excellence and trains for Coolmore, the world-wide breeding enterprise established by Vincent O’Brien, his son-in-law John Magnier and Pools heir, Robert Sangster. The O’Brien’s later moved to the K-Club in Co. Kildare and since 2017 the paintings which had been in their possession since 1971, have been on loan to the National Gallery of Ireland.
The fifth O’Brien painting in the sale is the evocative William Orpen, Old John’s Cottage, Connemara (1908) which shows Seán and Máire Geoghegan sitting stoically by the fire in their humble Mayo cottage after their grand-daughter’s Farewell Party, known as an ‘American Wake’ and painted at a time when they were unlikely ever to see her again.
This large and beautifully executed painting was first purchased for £200 by the immensely wealthy American heiress Mrs. Evelyn St. George who became Orpen’s lover the same year (1908). The pair later scandalised high society in Dublin and London by having a child together.
What united Jack B. Yeats and Vincent O’Brien was the ability to see with the ‘artists eye’ what others do not. Both reached the pinnacle of achievement in their chosen spheres, because O’Brien was never prepared to settle for second best, and Yeats was a single-minded artist of vision and talent.
The result is this remarkable collection of paintings Vincent and Jacqueline were enabled to buy by his exploits on the turf and whose reputation, like that of Yeats and Orpen, has grown, rather than diminished with the decades.
Liam Collins
A distinguished figure in American legal history, Judge Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. served as a United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for over two decades, following his appointment by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. His career was a testament to public service, from his early days as a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II, through his legal practice in both Philadelphia and Baltimore, and his various government roles, including with the U.S. Department of State. Educated at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Law School, Murnaghan's intellectual rigor and dedication marked him as one of the leading legal minds of his generation.
But beyond the courtroom, Murnaghan was a man of deep and diverse passions. A lover of the arts, and in particular Irish painting, Murnaghan began collecting works around 1970, steadily amassing a collection that reflected both his discerning taste and his dedication to preserving the cultural heritage of Ireland. His collecting journey, which he once referred to as a "wall-devouring entity," was pursued with the same tenacity and insight that defined his legal career.
In correspondence, Murnaghan expressed his love for both the old and the new, yet confessed to being drawn particularly to more traditional forms of expression. He cherished works by Northern Irish artists, such as Andrew Nicholl and James Humbert Craig, and delighted in collecting pieces by major figures such as Roderic O’Conor, Nathaniel Hone and Leo Whelan among many others. His collection became a vivid testament to the broad spectrum of Irish artistic talent, curated with an eye for both historical significance and personal resonance.
Today, we are privileged to offer a selection from Judge Murnaghan’s exceptional collection, a tangible reflection of his refined tastes and enduring love for Irish art. It is our hope that these works, which once graced his home, will find new admirers and be treasured as they were by him.
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Summer Lines
Oil and collage on board, 51 x 18cm (20 x 7”)
Signed
Provenance: With Taylor Galleries,Dublin, label verso
€ 1,500 - 2,000
€ 2,000 - 3,000
Signed
€ 3,000 - 5,000
4
JOHN BOYD (B.1957)
Echolaliac Prothalamium (1994)
Oil on board, 50.5 x 71cm (19¾ x 28’’)
Signed and dated 1994
€ 4,000 - 6,000
5
CECIL FFRENCH SALKELD ARHA (1904-1969)
Two Nudes in a Tropical Landscape
Oil on canvas board, 50.5 x 40.5cm (20 x 16’’)
Signed
€ 5,000 - 8,000
Threshold: Monserrat 2 (1975)
Oil on board, 60 x 60cm (23½ x 23½’’)
Signed
Provenance: with David Hendriks Gallery, label verso
€ 20,000 - 30,000
Two main series of paintings dominated Colin Middleton’s work in the 1970s. The Wilderness Series is often seen as a return to the interest in Surrealism that had dominated his work in the 1930s and early 1940s, and was partly inspired by the journeys Middleton undertook to Australia and Spain in the early 1970s, with various autobiographical elements woven through the series.
The Westerness Series is a more compressed and tightly-focussed body of work, in which Middleton’s experience in design and his interest in texture created passages in which the image is at times almost indistinguishable from the suggestion of material, achieved through effects on the paint surface. Throughout these paintings there is a high level of formal integration of the female archetype with the landscape, and also the recurring symbol of the bird, which Middleton used extensively throughout his career, often to suggest a spiritual aspect or counterpart to the human presence. These paintings are a reminder that in many ways Middleton remained a symbolist, rather than a surrealist, throughout his career.
The mountain of Montserrat is likely to have been recalled from one of Middleton’s visits to his daughter, Jane, in Barcelona. The religious significance of the mountain is closely associated with the Madonna of Montserrat, in the same way as Middleton ascribed spiritual significance to both place and female figure. The three figures in the painting almost seem to be carved from wood, like the Madonna, but with mysterious pointed hats possibly with architectural overtones.
The composition, with three figures, recalls Jane Middleton’s memory of one of her father’s visits to Montserrat, where he made an ‘absolutely beautiful, detailed pencil drawing of the rock formations turned into a Holy Trinity’,¹ which suggests another reading for the three figures in this work.
What John Hewitt described as the ‘veils and gauzes of the still capes and panoplies of the rather monolithic figures’ ² are wrapped around their bodies and emerge from the rock-like ledge on which they stand. While this series avoids literal interpretation, its ideas and symbols are at the heart of Middleton’s work throughout his career, and are expressed with immense resolution and subtlety.
Dickon Hall, October, 2024
7
ARTHUR ARMSTRONG RHA (1924-1996)
Interior
Pastel and watercolour, 53 x 38cm (20¾ x 15’’)
Signed
Provenance: Sale, de Veres, Dublin, Studio Sale, February 1998
€ 1,500 - 2,000
8
ARTHUR ARMSTRONG RHA (1924-1996)
Seated Musician
Oil on board, 50 x 40cm (19½ x 15¾’’)
Signed
Provenance: Sale, de Veres, Dublin, Studio Sale, February 1998
€ 2,000 - 3,000
EVIE HONE HRHA (1894-1955)
Untitled
Gouache, 60 x 37cm (23½ x 14½’’)
€ 8,000 - 12,000
Although untitled this painting by Evie Hone depicts The Crucifixion and was completed in c.1928-1930. Its predominant decorative palette of pastel pinks and pale purples, grey-blues and pale yellow, its shallow pictorial space and distinctive round arched canopy all derive from specific medieval sources. A smaller version by Hone (almost half the size at 31.6 x 21.8cm) of the same picture is in the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI.7852). The NGI version is much darker in tone, dominated by greys and golds, strokes of red and rose pinks, and has an unprecedented and almost graphic use of black akin to the lead lines found in stained glass. Both paintings were made sometime after the spring of 1928 when Hone went to France to join Mainie Jellett and Albert Gleizes who had been painting at Moly-Sabata, the utopian art colony established by Gleizes in the department of Ardèche of the Rhône valley in eastern France the year before.
Gleizes had first painted a Crucifixion scene in 1926, after an intense five years of experimentation in abstraction. However, the version he painted in 1930 is compositionally closer to Hone’s two versions of the subject. Like the NGI painting it is smaller, measuring 24 x 16cm; it is now in the collection of Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris (AM 1357 D). Again, it is darker, composed of deep blues, browns, greens and ochre creams and has more patterns of stripes and dots than Hone’s more linear and lyrical versions. A further version by Gleizes from 1935 is in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI.2008.35). This is perhaps the largest of all the known versions (117.5 x 77.3cm) and is marked by stronger, more intense primary colours – predominantly blues, oranges and greens. Gleizes returned again to the theme in 1949 about the time he was completing etchings for an illustrated edition of the seventeenth century French philosopher Blaise Pascal’s Pensées sur l’Homme et Dieu (published in 1950).
When setting up his colony at Moly-Sabata, Gleizes had initiated a scheme of mural decoration for the Église Sainte-Blanches at nearby Serrières. This was to depict The Crucifixion, The Coronation of the Virgin and The Descent from the Cross in the format of a triptych. Gleizes and Jellett worked on the scheme for most of 1927, but the following year just as Hone arrived the project came to an abrupt end when the designs were rejected by the church. Hone’s two versions of The Crucifixion follow on from this scheme and subsequent variants by Jellett and Gleizes of which Jellett’s Coronation of the Virgin (Homage to Fra Angelico) (Private Collection) is perhaps the best known. The source for all these paintings by Gleizes, Jellett and Hone is more than likely Hone’s copy of André Jolles’s Fra Angelico da Fiesole: Acht Farbige Wiedergaben Berühmter Gemälde (published in Leipzig in 1926). Hone’s versions of The Crucifixion, as well as a number of pochoirs (limited edition colour prints), are among the few known works by her from this critical period.
Dr.Joseph McBrinn, October 2024
10
RALPH CUSACK (1912 - 1965)
A Flower Piece
Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 45cm (20 x 17¾’’)
Signed and dated (19)’46 lower right
Provenance: With Elizabeth Guinness, Dublin, 1983; Sale, Christies, London, 10 May, 2007, lot 65; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 3,000 - 5,000
11
NORAH MCGUINNESS HRHA (1901-1980)
Still Life
Oil on canvas, 50 x 35cm (19½ x 13¾’’)
Signed
€ 3,000 - 5,000
Storm in Limerick
Oil on board, 44.5 x 59.5cm (17½ x 23½’’)
Signed
Provenance: Sale, these rooms, 5 December, 2006, lot 95.
Exhibited: London, The Leicester Galleries, 1951
€ 20,000 - 30,000
This highly atmospheric image creates a clear sense of foreboding as the oncoming storm approaches, with the scene set in the precarious moments before the full force of the weather front is felt. McGuinness is well known for her vivid and expressively coloured landscapes, and she painted several examples of Limerick city and the ports and harbours of other main cities.
The composition here appears to be depicting the bridge and buildings along the canal and harbour in the city. The single arched stone bridges can be seen at several intervals along the waterways in Limerick. The industry and commercial use of the canals are evident in the barge visible just to the right of the composition, the two warehouse buildings on the left, and a wooden dock for unloading, that now looks precariously placed amongst the rushing waters. However, this trade and transport link was coming close to the end when McGuinness painted this scene, Limerick’s commercial canal network was shut down entirely in early 1960.
As the water level rises, a lone figure can be seen peering over the edge of the stone wall watching the crash and flow of the river below. The sky darkens ominously in the background, creating a dramatic backdrop for the scene. The trees sway forcibly in the wind and her use of soft brushstrokes creates a blurring effect, giving a sense of the surface of the painting in motion.
The confident use of bright colour tones, reds, yellows and greens become even more dramatic against the grey sky. The darkened, rain laden clouds are mirrored in the surface of the water, rushing over the river bed. The gates of the lock are visible just beyond the arch of the bridge, and we can imagine the torrent of water falling on the other side.
Niamh
Corcoran, October, 2024
Coastal Landscape, Connemara
Oil on board, 32 x 39.5cm (12½ x 15½’’)
Signed
€ 1,500 - 2,000
Near Roundstone, Connemara
Oil on board, 39 x 49cm (15½ x 19¼”)
Signed
Provenance: With David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, label verso
€ 4,000 - 6,000
LEO WHELAN RHA (1892 -
1956)
The Cello Player
Oil on canvas, 103 x 85cm (40½ x 33½’’) Signed, also signed and inscribed verso
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 20,000 - 30,000
Corcoran, October 2024 Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan
Whelan worked within the academic tradition and his portraits often favoured a more restricted palette with his sitters presented in a focused and formal manner. They are similar in some respects to the Dutch genre scenes, following an upright composition, painted looking into a domestic interior, of a kitchen or living room such as A Kitchen Interior with Maid (sold these rooms, 2013). His figures are absorbed in their respective activity unaware of being observed.
In this wonderfully presented portrait, a peaceful silence pervades the scene, and we are called on to imagine the sounds emanating from the cello. Whelan is noted for his ability to render the hands of his figures with particular skill. In this work, the elegant fingers are poised on the strings, in the other hand the musician holds the bow of the cello, drawing out the notes. He wears a formal black suit jacket, white shirt and bow tie. There is a wonderful detail captured in the red handkerchief that hangs from the jacket pocket, while his hat and coat are placed on a stool behind him as if he has just arrived in the room. Is he practicing a piece of music or performing for an unseen crowd ? Whelan leaves this open ended, pushing narrative elements beyond the picture plane.
Whelan uses a series of framing devices within the image, with the thick heavy curtain hanging in front of the window which looks out onto, and, in through another window beyond. There is a strong use of vertical and horizontal lines in the window frame, repeated in the geometric pattern of the brick wall. Windows appear in many of his works, allowing him to play with spatial boundaries, and the patterns of the light falling across a room.
The same male model can be seen in Whelan’s The Fiddler from 1932 (Crawford Art Gallery, Cork) which he exhibited in the RHA in the same year. In that work the sitter turns to face us, his instrument balanced on one knee. He wears the same round spectacles and white collared shirt. Unfortunately, we do not know the identity of the sitter and it is interesting that he is shown playing two very different instruments. In both works Whelan presents a naturalistic and sensitively characterised study of the act of playing music.
Niamh
16
CONOR FALLON RHA (1939 - 2007)
Skylark (1983)
Steel, 84cm(h) (33”) Edition 2/7
Signed and dated (19)’83
€ 2,000 - 4,000
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
WILLIAM JOHN LEECH RHA ROI (1881-1968)
Oil on canvas, 63 x 53cm (24¾ x 20¾”)
Signed With Portrait of Frank O’Connor verso, Signed
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 8,000 - 12,000
The tight cropping, oblique diagonals and multiple interlocking planes, tied together with effortlessly fluid organic forms of this composition are typical of William Leech’s mature manner. The same goes for the relatively subdued yet bold colour palette. In all, it makes for a pictorial dynamism that belies the sedate, domestic subject matter. But then, look what Bonnard or Matisse achieved with similar material. On the verso is a very fresh, vivid portrait of the writer Frank O’Connor. This double act stems from the artist’s practice, begun at some point in the 1930s, of painting on the reverse of canvases that, for one reason or another, he could not sell.
An extremely capable and thoughtful painter, Leech - usually known as Bill to his friends - was temperamentally reserved and indifferent to self-promotion. His sober, conservative appearance was at odds with the bohemian world of French painting that inspired him, and indeed with his painterly verve.
The son of a Trinity law professor and a dance teacher, he was born in Dublin, attended St Columba’s College in Rathfarnham and went to the Metropolitan School of Art, where his talent was soon recognised. Orpen had recently left the Metropolitan but his stylistic imprint was evident in Leech’s earlier work for some time. More significant, though, was his experience with Walter Osborne at the RHA schools. Leech was already a good French speaker, having spent a year in Switzerland, and Osborne pointed him towards the dazzling world of French painting, the light and colour of the Impressionists.
He spent much time in France, and his best work reflected the freedom and spontaneity exemplified by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. He followed his parents to London when they moved there in 1910, and he was more or less based in the UK from then on, but he retained his Irish identity and consistently exhibited in Ireland. The gallerist Leo Smith was an important supporter. Leech is well represented in major public and private collections in Ireland, and his sun-drenched 1911 painting A Convent Garden, Brittany remains one of the most popular works in the National Gallery of Ireland.
Aidan Dunne, October 2024
PAUL HENRY RHA (1877-1958)
A Bog Road in Kerry (c.1934/9)
Oil on canvas 35 x 40cm (13¾ x 15¾”)
Signed; inscribed with title verso
Provenance: Sale, these rooms, 9/10/1980, lot 44, illus.; with Oriel Gallery, Dublin; Private collection, Dublin.
Literature: Dr S.B. Kennedy, ‘Paul Henry- Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations’, Yale 2007, Catalogue no.904 , Illus p.279
€ 60,000 - 80,000
A feint inscription on the reverse suggests that the title is A Bog Road in Kerry and the composition, freedom of brushwork and style certainly confirms this suggestion and also suggests a likely date in the mid to late 1930s. The work is very much in keeping with Henry’s work of this period and is aligned with those works that Dr. S.B. Kennedy suggests are scenes in Co. Kerry - with simple bogland compositions and vigorous brushstrokes.
The delicately modeled deep blue mountains provide a sense of solidity to the work and the inky blackness of the turf stacks grounds the composition, while the pale browns in the foreground generates much welcome lightness.
Paul Henry liked the Dingle Peninsula and was always happy there. ‘It is lovely. Wherever one turns there is material for dozens of pictures’, he wrote to James Healy, his dealer in America. He explored the whole area (Mabel, his second wife, had a motor car) which reminded him of Cape Cod, ‘very lonely & wild but not very paintable...nicer at a distance’, he ventured to Healy. But he made numerous sketches which later, in the studio, were turned into paintings. This painting may have been made from one of those sketches.
Vincent & Jacqueline O’Brien Collection
JACK BUTLER YEATS RHA (1871-1957)
Horsemen (1947)
Oil on canvas, 46 x 61cm (18 x 24’’)
Signed
Provenance: Sold to R. McGonigal at the Victor Waddington Galleries exhibition in 1947; G. Marriott, London; with Victor Waddington, London; Collection Vincent and Jacqueline O’Brien, Ireland 1971, thence by descent.
Exhibited: Dublin, Victor Waddington Galleries, Paintings, 3-16 October,1947 cat. no.6; London, Victor Waddington Galleries, Paintings, 11 Feb - 13 Mar 1965, cat. no.20 (Illustrated); Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, on loan from 2017 to 2024.
Literature: Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, London, 1992, cat.no.834, p.752 (illustrated)
€ 500,000 - 800,000
Set against the dramatic view of Benbulben and the coastline of county Sligo, a man on horseback looks out over the extraordinary scenery. He holds the reins of a second bare backed animal which seems to be equally engaged in looking out towards the strand. Below them in the distance another rider on horseback gallops to the water’s edge.
The work relates to several paintings of horses and their riders made by Yeats in 1947. Among Horses (1947, Private Collection) also has a view of Benbulben in the background. Freedom (1947, Private Collection) shows a horse galloping away from its owner. Others include Wind from the Sea, The Race and The Wild Ones and the theme is developed in such late masterpieces as Singing Horseman (1949, NGI) and My Beautiful, My Beautiful, (1953, Private Collection). Yeats’s love of horses began in his childhood in county Sligo and is evident in his early depictions of race meetings and fairs in the West of Ireland in which the horse featured prominently. Its inclusion served to heighten the emotional content of the paintings where a direct connection between man and animal is manifest.
Writing of Yeats’s work Thomas MacGreevy noted that ‘There are no lovelier horses in all painting than Jack Yeats’s. They have a miraculous elegance and he has always loved to paint them when they looked as though mere existence was sufficiently exhilarating, …’. ¹. In Horsemen the stiff pose of the old man who watches intently is subtly counterbalanced by the relaxed and patient pose of his mount. The almost transparent body of the other horse is formed out of bright orange, white and yellow paint, making the beast appear almost like a phantom. Its legs are delicately moulded out of pigment. The noble animal seems tense and spirited and absorbed in watching the horse and rider below.
The juxtaposition of men, horses and spectacular scenery marks the West of Ireland out as an exceptional place where the bond between humankind and nature is exceptionally close. The entire surface of the painting is full of shimmering movement caused by the diversity of brushstrokes and the pulsating application of colour throughout the work. The sky is filled with deep blue and white shapes that turn to dark misty cloud just above the head of the old man. In the centre of the composition the white sand of the beach appears to have been made using a form of decalcomania, a technique whereby a smooth object such as glass in pressed into wet paint and pulled away to create a vivid surface. Elsewhere in the ground beneath the horses’ hooves the paint seems to have been applied by swirling the brush into the canvas creating a visceral plane.
Dr. Róisín Kennedy, October 2024
Vincent & Jacqueline O’Brien Collection
JACK BUTLER YEATS RHA (1871-1957)
He Reads a Book (1952)
Oil on canvas, 46 x 61cm (18 x 24’’)
Signed
Provenance: Sold by the artist to Victor Waddington Galleries, December 1956; Collection Vincent and Jacqueline O’Brien, Ireland 1971, thence by descent.
Exhibited: London, Wildenstein, Recent Paintings, 4 – 28 March 1953, cat.no.15; Dublin, Victor Waddington Galleries, Oil Paintings, October 1953, cat.no.4; Dublin, Municipal Gallery, An Tóstal: Irish Painting 1903 – 1953, April – July, 1953, cat.no.3; Belfast, Museum and Art Gallery, Paintings, (organised by CEMA, the Council for Encouragement of Music and the Arts), February – March, 1956, cat.no.38; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, on loan from 2017 to 2024.
Literature: Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, London, 1992, cat.no. 1111, p.1013 (illustrated)
€ 500,000 - 700,000
The extraordinary subject of this painting is a man reading a book while on horseback. Hilary Pyle suggests that it may have been based on something that the artist had seen.¹ The prancing form of the horse with its forelegs raised and its hindlegs firmly on the ground is highly unusual and suggests that the animal is performing a specific pose rather than galloping over the terrain. The theme may have originated in the context of a circus or stage performance seen by Yeats such as the circus in the West of Ireland that he illustrated for J M Synge’s In Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara, published in 1911 or the double balancing act depicted in The Circus, (1921, Private Collection). In the former, a man stands on the back of a horse, balancing himself with a baton. Yeats revisited many such encounters in his later works. Most notably in the context of this work is the Cavalier’s Farewell to its Steed (1948, NGI) in which a swaggering figure of a man bids adieu to a merry go round horse. The subject may also have been inspired by Yeats’s love of American cowboy literature such as the bizarre frontier tales of Bret Harte. The rider seems oblivious to his surroundings or perhaps he is imagining his adventures on horseback inspired by his reading material.
In Tir na nÓg (1936, Private Collection) Yeats depicts a young boy engrossed in a book while surrounded by the tiny figures of the land of youth which he has been reading about. In several other late works Yeats concentrates on figures reading, unaware of the world around them. These include A Giant Reading, (1942, Private Collection), Man Reading (1945, Private Collection) and The City (1944, Private Collection) where a man stands engrossed in his newspaper. Yeats sets the rider and horse in a vast open landscape. A strong opaque palette is applied in a manner that conveys the energy and vitality of nature with swirling clouds and the brisk movement of the horse in the empty terrain. Behind the horse and rider is a huge outcrop of rock which casts a deep blue shadow below them. To the right an expanse of pale mauve and purple mountains closes off the horizon creating a tremendous sense of vast, uninhabited space. In contrast to the delicate hues of the peaks, the bright orange and yellow of the horse with its noble head and flying mane and tail create a dramatic contrast. These powerful colours are augmented by the intense blue of the horse’s hooves and the surrounding landscape. The eyes of the animal are carved out of two strokes of thick impasto paint which along with the blue tip of its nose suggests the sensuous awareness of the beast to nature and the world around it. By contrast, the white form of the rider, his face masked by his book, seems an incongruous element in this scenario. The work could be seen as a riposte to Yeats’s Singing Horseman (1949, National Gallery of Ireland) where the crooning rider opens himself to the wild landscape. In He Reads a Book, the glorious figure of the horse dominates the composition, becoming a symbol of freedom and the intuitive intelligence of the animal kingdom.
Dr. Róisín Kennedy, October 2024
1. Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, André Deutsch, London, 1992, II, p.1013.
Vincent & Jacqueline O’Brien Collection
SIR WILLIAM ORPEN, RA RHA (1876-1931)
Old John’s Cottage, Connemara (1908)
Oil on canvas, 91.5 x 96.5cm (36 x 38’’)
Signed and dated 1908
Provenance: Mrs Evelyn St George, 1908, (£200); A. St George & B. Duke, September 1989 to Pyms Gallery, London; Collection Vincent and Jacqueline O’Brien, Ireland 1971, thence by descent.
Exhibited: Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, A Free Spirit, Irish Art, 1860-1960, 1990, no. 31 Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, on loan from 2017 to 2024.
Literature: Sir William Orpen RA, Stories of Old Ireland and Myself, 1924 (Williams and Northgate), p. 34 (illus)
PG Konody & Sidney Dark, Sir William Orpen, 1932 (Seeley Service & Co Ltd), p. 277 listed as ‘uncertain date’
Bruce Arnold, Orpen Mirror to an Age, 1981 (Jonathan Cape), 1981, p.239
Kenneth McConkey, A Free Spirit, Irish Art, 1860-1960, 1990 (Antique Collectors’ Club in association with Pyms Gallery, London), pp. 132-3 (illus).
€ 300,000 - 500,000
In 1907 when William Orpen was painting his first portrait of Gardenia St George at Screebe Lodge in Maam Cross, county Mayo, he visited the humbler abode of Seán and Máire Geoghegan - a cabin the interior of which became the setting for Old John’s Cottage, Connemara. The custodians of this ancient hearth, mute and motionless, project an iconic presence.¹ Their passivity carries the grief that came with the departure of their granddaughter for New York where she would enter domestic service and never be seen again. The farewell was marked in what was described as an ‘American Wake’. The contrast between what he referred to as the ‘poorer classes’ pictured here, and the ‘Ascendancy’ circle in Louth where he would shortly paint the Vere Foster Family, (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin) could not be greater.²
Up to this point Orpen had mythologised the Dublin poor as a collection of ragged mountebanks plying their trade on the Quays, but now he confronted the blank resignation of those for whom there was no escape from life’s hard landscape. Travellers to this terrain, before and after Orpen’s depiction of two typical inhabitants, lifted their eyes to the hills and marvelled at its rugged beauty, while recognising that lands west of the Shannon, where Cromwell corralled the native Irish, was a place of desolation and destitution. Ravaged by poverty, famine and the ‘Land Wars’ of the 1880s, cabins like that in the present painting had been laid waste during the harsh evictions of recent memory.
The cottage, Orpen tells us, was located on a bog, about nine miles from his patron’s lodge, and half a mile from the road, with no easy access. On the night of the wake, he arrived at 10 o’clock to find, ‘the grandmother and grandfather sat in their places on each side of the fire, and benches were ranged round the walls, on which the couples were seated.’ Plied with hot tea and poteen, silence reigned until ‘the music man would play some sad air and a few of the couples … would … dance very slowly in a weary, bored sort of way.’ Orpen stayed for four hours, during which time not a word was spoken between those present, before he decamped into the pouring rain. The young emigrant, who had been ‘ignored’ all evening then caught up with him to help him find a safe way to the road, and the following morning he presented her with a photograph of the painting.³ If the painter’s narrative is to be accepted, it seems likely that the work, begun in 1907, remained at the Maam Cross lodge until the following year, when events surrounding the wake and the gift of the photograph must have occurred. Orpen recorded the progress of the present work in a letter to his wife, Grace, giving her a swift pen drawing of the ensemble in which the roof was too high and the room too large. Nevertheless, he concluded ‘I think it is going well’ (fig 1).
In the autumn of 1908, Old John’s Cottage, Connemara was purchased for £200 by Gardenia’s mother, Mrs St George.4
Clearly the work’s social historical significance is immense. Its authenticity breaks through the Yeatsian ‘motley’ of fairies, myth and legend, and stands with JM Synge in the presentation of a people whose beliefs, customs and culture was regarded as a unique survival.5 Orpen’s sympathies were not with Horace Plunkett and the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, any more than he approved of ‘intellectuals’ of the George Russell (AE) stripe.6 At heart he was an ‘eye’ – an observer in whose neutrality before the ancient hearth, lay his power.
In visual terms Old John’s Cottage, Connemara provides a necessary corrective to the work of Erskine Nicol, James Brennan and Howard Helmick, who established an ‘Irish’ subgenre of peasant interiors in exhibitions throughout Britain and Ireland fifty years earlier. But where these artists looked for diverting subjects, Orpen adopts a different tradition, and one that can ultimately be traced to French Naturalism of the 1880s. Its impact upon painters in the early days of the New English Art Club and the Slade School of Fine Art, where he would complete his training and become a new generation star exhibitor, was profound.7 The likes of George Clausen and James Guthrie, had looked for documentary accuracy in their depictions of fieldworkers, often posing them ‘as they live’, in portrait mode, and with no condescension or concession to narrative. This was the generation of Walter Osborne whose Galway expedition of 1892 led to an oil sketch that provides evidence of a similar cottage encounter (fig 2).
The moment for such objectivity had never passed, but at the opening of the twentieth century, addressing a people that even by the 1930s was considered to have been ‘locked away for centuries by geography and poverty’, it was becoming both necessary, and urgent. The case would be taken up by Orpen’s pupils, Seán Keating, Charles Lamb and
others, in an effort to reveal a prelapsarian world, west of Galway, in which ‘Progress – whatever we mean by it – has broken in vain against grey walls’. Recognising this, Old John’s Cottage, Connemara avoids the obvious later valorisation of the Gael in the works such as Keating’s Aran Fisherman and his Wife, 1916 (Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin) and Lamb’s Quaint Couple, 1930 (Crawford Art Gallery, Cork), while Paul Henry’s early Achill turf cutters and potato diggers were, in 1908, yet to come.
How then do we approach Orpen’s seminal encounter in a cottage in Connemara? How does the present painting play against his own heroic self-projection as a ‘man of the west’, clad in an Aran bonnet, leather jerkin and ‘crois’ or woollen sash tied at the waste (fig 3)
In Orpen’s Connemara cabin, a stage is set for himself and others to play their parts. Its origins, so far as he – ‘Orpsieboy’ - suburban Dubliner - exiled in London - was concerned, lay in the precision with which the poses of the elderly couple,living on the earthen floor of a barren bog, were rendered. The man’s reverie and the woman’s grave reticence are theirs alone. They were as he found them, and would be still, if he was alive and went back today. Like Grant Wood’s American Gothic, 1930 (Art Institute of Chicago), they are de trop, but at the same time, essential.
Kenneth McConkey, November, 2024
1. Information giving the title of the picture is derived from a letter to Grace, the artist’s wife, quoted in Bruce Arnold, Orpen Mirror to an Age, 1981 (Jonathan Cape), p.239.
2. Sir William Orpen RA, Stories of Old Ireland and Myself, 1924 (Williams and Northgate), p.32; see also Arnold, 1981, p.239.
3. A story confirmed in Arnold 1981.
4. Orpen 1924, p. 36. The picture’s reservation to Mrs St George may also explain its absence rom the artist’s Studio Book. It appears however in Cara Copeland’s handwritten List of Pictures and Drawings by Sir William Orpen RA produced around the time of the artist’s death.
5. Abbey Theatre productions gained tacit approval from Nationalists up until the so-called ‘Playboy riots’ in Dublin in the spring of 1907, just before Orpen made his visit to Galway.
6. For the utopian vision of rural Ireland, see Sir Horace Plunkett KCVO, FRS, Ireland in the New Century, 1904 (Irish Academic Press ed., 1983); also AE (George William Russell), The National Being, Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity, 1916 (Maunsel & Co, Dublin).
7. George Clausen’s A Field Hand, 1884 (Private Collection) and James Guthrie’s A Village Worthy, 1886 (Glasgow Museums), typify this trend.
Vincent & Jacqueline O’Brien Collection
JACK BUTLER YEATS RHA (1871-1957)
The Window with a View of the Town (1951)
Oil on canvas, 51 x 68.5cm (20 x 27’’)
Signed
Provenance: Sold to Mrs Mabel Spiro at the exhibition in 1951; Collection Vincent and Jacqueline O’Brien, Ireland 1971, thence by descent.
Exhibited: Dublin, Victor Waddington Galleries, Paintings, October 1951 cat.no.4; Belfast, Museum and Art Gallery, Paintings, (organised by CEMA, the Council for Encouragement of Music and the Arts), February – March, 1956, cat.no.15; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, on loan from 2017 to 2024.
Literature: Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, London, 1992, cat.no. 1080, p.984 (illustrated)
€ 300,000 - 500,000
An old man and a young boy stand together looking out through a window. Below them a town with a tall spire can be seen. The boy leans his head on his arm and gazes wistfully into the distance. His companion has a benevolent expression on his angular face which is skillfully sculpted out of white and blue paint. To the couple’s left the room opens onto a loggia with grass and trees in the garden beyond. A white hat on a table indicates that this is a summer day and that the two figures may have come in from outside to look out the window. An oval mirror on the wall behind them and the heavy drapes are indicative of the elaborate décor of the house.
The subject may relate to Sligo which was the location for several paintings by Yeats which use interiors and windows as their core device. These include A Room in Sligo (1935, Private Collection) which shows a view of the mall through a large window. Evening Light (1943, Private Collection) also uses a large window on the right with figures in an old fashioned interior. Evening in Sligo (1937, Private Collection) recalls a formal dinner with an outstanding landscape visible through the window. The Window with a View of the Town may also be derived from a memory from Yeats’s childhood in that county where he spent a great deal of time with his grandfather. The use of doorways and openings off the main space is also a frequent ploy found in Yeats’s pictures of interiors. One of the earliest is A Dancer (Rosses Point Sligo) (1921, Private Collection) which while a more modest abode than the one in this painting, also shows a doorway opening onto a hallway on the left and extending into other spaces. This manner of framing the composition into a series of spatial elements derives partly from the work of such Post-Impressionist artists as Paul Cézanne. Yeats’s development of it in his work relates to his fascination with the creation of temporary performance spaces in theatre and the circus and from his desire to draw attention to the similar artificiality of space created within a painting.
The agitated handling of paint that determines the fluctuating and dynamic surface of the painting is contrasted by the balanced geometrical division of the composition. The rectangular shape of the window opening is echoed by that of the open doorway leading into the loggia and the garden beyond. Strong vertical elements such as the door jambs and the beam of the loggia create a strong sense of structure and provide an almost theatrical setting for the poignant moment between the two figures in the foreground as they gaze out at another view. The dominant blue and white of the palette is indicative of shadow and is contrasted by patches of intense red and yellow and by the luscious green of the foliage outside. The modelling of the two figures in thick impasto is extremely sensitively handled and ably conveys the intimacy and tenderness of this memory of a shared moment between two different generations.
Dr. Róisín Kennedy, October 2024
Vincent & Jacqueline O’Brien Collection
JACK BUTLER YEATS RHA (1871-1957)
Willie Reilly (The Singing Actor) (1902)
Oil on canvas, laid on board, 61 x 47cm (24 x 18 ½’’) Signed
Provenance: Sold in 1902 to John Quinn, his sale, American Art Galleries (New York), 10 February 1927, lot 236, bought by Ernest Boyd; With Victor Waddington Galleries, Dublin; With The Dawson Gallery, Dublin; Collection Vincent and Jacqueline O’Brien, Ireland 1971, thence by descent.
Exhibited: Dublin, Wells Central Hall, Sketches of Life in the West of Ireland, 18 – 30 August, 1902, cat.no.23; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, on loan from 2017 to 2024.
Literature: Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, London, 1992, cat.no.3, p.4; John Quinn 1870 – 1925: collection of paintings, watercolours and sculpture (1926), repro p.159 as The Singing Actor.
€ 150,000 - 200,000
This very early oil painting is based on a scene from a play ‘Willie Reilly ’ which was performed at the Mechanics Theatre, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin in October 1901. The melodrama is based on an 18th century Ulster ballad which tells the tale of a Catholic farmer who elopes with the daughter of an Orangeman. He is subsequently deported for life for transgressing the Penal Laws. Yeats’s later oil Rise up Willie Reilly (1945, Private Collection) is based on the female ballad singer whose opening verse calls on Reilly to rise up and come along with her, a nationalist interpretation of the song. In the 1902 version the character of Willie Reilly stands on stage, in front of an elaborate set depicting a waterfall, a high mountain and a wooded landscape. In his later work, In Memory of Boucicault and Bianconi (1937, National Gallery of Ireland), Yeats uses a similar setting for a melodrama but here it is the real landscape of the Glencar waterfall. The complex stage set of the Mechanics Theatre includes a coulisse or piece of scenery that extends out into the stage and through which the actor must have appeared. In this claustrophobic setting, the figure proclaims himself, wearing a bright green riding jacket, fine riding boots and carrying a riding crop. His right arm with clenched fist is raised in a dramatic gesture. His mouth is open in song, and, in fact, the painting was also known as The Singing Actor. This middle aged man, with his curly wig, flushed cheeks and portly build, is far from a conventional romantic hero. Yeats told the Irish American lawyer John Quinn in 1903 that he was based on ‘a decayed old actor whom I saw in a theatre down by the docks in Dublin…’. ¹
Yeats was an avid theatre goer throughout his life, writing several plays himself, including producing cut out miniature theatres for children. He reused the first verse of the ballad Willie Reilly in one of the latter, The Treasure of the Garden (1903). He frequented the Mechanics Theatre which he referred to as the Sailor’s Theatre and in his 1905 watercolour, Willie Reilly at the Old Mechanics Theatre, (1905, Private Collection), the audience is dominated by sailors.² The Mechanics Theatre was acquired by Annie Horniman in 1904 and became the home of the new Abbey Theatre. The painting which prefigures many of Yeats’s later theatre inspired works is painted in thick vibrantly coloured oil paint. The playhouse and music hall were popular subjects with artists interested in the interaction between the performer and the public such as the English painter Walter Sickert who admired Yeats’s work. The artificial stage setting is clearly evident in the prominent floorboards and the black light boxes in the foreground and in the shadow cast over the face of Willie Reilly. The painting was bought by John Quinn on his first visit to Ireland in 1902 and was included in the sale of his outstanding collection of modern art in New York in 1927. It was acquired there by the critic and writer, Ernest Boyd, author of Contemporary Drama in Ireland (1917).
Dr. Róisín Kennedy, October 2024
1. Quoted in Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, André Deutsch, London, 1992, I, p.4.
2. Jim Cooke, ‘The Mechanics’ Institute 1824-1919’, Dublin Historical Record, 52, (1999), pp,15-31.
DANIEL O’NEILL (1920-1974)
Doves and a Girl
Oil on board, 51 x 40.5cm (20 x 15¾’’)
Signed
Exhibited: Dublin, Victor Waddington Galleries, Daniel O’Neill, 1949, (September), no. 1.
Dundalk, Co.Louth, The Dundalk Art Galleries, Opening Exhibition of Works by Irish Artists, (May) 1953, no. 32
Dublin, The Oriel Gallery, 100 Years of Irish Art, 1993. Dublin, Farmleigh Gallery, Daniel O’Neill: Romanticism and Friendships, (March-June) 2022, Belfast, Cultúrlann Gallery, Daniel O’Neill : Coming Home, (June – Aug) 2022, no.2
Literature: Oliver Nulty, 100 Years of Irish Art: Oriel Gallery SilverJubilee, 1968-1993, p.96.
Karen Reihill, Daniel O’Neill: Romanticism & Friendships, Frederick Gallery Bookshop, 2020, illustrated front cover, and illustrated p.35.
€ 40,000 - 60,000
To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Daniel O’Neill in 2020, an exhibition and monograph dedicated to him, Daniel O’Neill: Romanticism and Friendships was planned to take place in OPW’s Farmleigh Gallery, Dublin. In 2015 this writer was approached by Daniel O’Neill’s daughter, Patricia Forster (19432017) who asked if I would undertake to research her father as no one had yet published a monograph on him. Early on in my research, I chose this painting, Doves and a Girl for the front cover of the book as it represented the romantic qualities of his paintings, his technical ability as a painter and showed his muse, and wife Eileen, who after their first meeting featured in many of his works until his untimely death in 1974.
Born into a working class Catholic family, Daniel O’Neill’s painting career coincided with the Second World War and as a result, there was little hope of him being able to travel to see the European Masters. The cultural atmosphere in Northern Ireland offered little encouragement to the aspiring young painter or his friends, George Campbell and Gerard Dillon. With barely a handful of outlets to exhibit their paintings, they turned to the Belfast Reference Library to learn about art and usedwhatever materials they could source locally to achieve their aim of being full time painters. They shared information and materials which consisted of tins of housepaint, scraps of cardboard, off-cuts of plywood, and hardback covers from large books to paint subjects. But after the Belfast Blitz there was little appetite to buy art in Northern Ireland.
In 1945 O’Neill’s professional painting career began when he was taken up by Dublin dealer, Victor Waddington who paid him a regular stipend so he could give up his job as an electrician and
paint full time. For the first time in his life, O’Neill’s dream of traveling to Europe to see the painters he had admired for years in reproductions in art books looked possible. His subjects during this period are largely autobiographical or express his own feelings about life and those around him. Women typically appear wearing clothes from another time or place, a device employed to focus the viewer’s attention on the prevailing mood or atmosphere.
O’Neill met his future wife, Eileen Lyle, the daughter of a Protestant damask weaver in 1942 and after their marriage, they chose to live in Conlig, a Protestant village between Bangor and Newtownards in County Down, where O’Neill hoped the small local community would accept them knowing Eileen was a Protestant. In 1948 O’Neill’s planned three week sketching trip to Paris was extended to six months leaving Eileen alone to care for their child. But in the process of marrying O’Neill, Eileen had taken instruction in Catholicism and had to raise her child as a Catholic. Neither O’Neill or Eileen cared for religion but O’Neill’s mother was a devout Catholic and visits from a priest to their Conlig home did not go unnoticed.
Patricia Forster said her father adored her mother but revealed her father’s prolonged absences from home and illness caused cracks in the marriage after he returned from Paris. O’Neill suffered from depression which caused him to turn to the numbing effects of alcohol. Patricia said in the context of the cultural differences in Belfast and the lack of understanding surrounding her father’s illness, there were long lasting consequences for the family.
Exhibited in O’Neill’s 1949 exhibition, Doves and a Girl was painted not long after O’Neill’s return from Paris. This work belongs to a number of dignified portraits of Eileen which are emotionally charged reflecting the prevailing atmosphere in her life. Eileen’s sombre expression and the appearance of doves may symbolise O’Neill’s yearning for peace in the midst of the turmoil in their marriage or may point to Eileen’s heroic role as a mother protecting their child during O’Neill’s absence from home. In other iconic works from this period, The First Born and Birth in the Ulster Museum collection, the theme centres on Eileen and the powerful imagery of maternity.
Karen Reihill, November, 2024
Oil on board, 53 x 73cm (20¾ x 28¾’’)
Signed
€ 3,000 - 5,000
GEORGE CAMPBELL RHA (1917-1979)
Play of Shapes No.15, Azteciana
Oil on board, 125 x 144cm (49¼ x 56½’’)
Signed; inscribed verso
Provenance: With Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, label verso dated October, 1964
€ 6,000 - 8,000
EDWARD DELANEY RHA
(1930 - 2009)
Celtic Dawn
Bronze, 89 x 29 x 179cm(h) including base
Provenance: Collection of the late Margaret Grant, Newcastle, Co Down
€ 10,000 - 15,000
Celtic Dawn is a large two piece bronze sculpure, which dates from the late 1960s and was cast by the sculptor in his foundry in Dun Laoghaire, south Dublin. The foundry was operational for about 20 years. The title reflects the artists’ continuing interest in the ancient Celtic past, but with such symbolism and imagery re-imagined and re-engaged in a modern context, as was popular in the 1960s, especially by Delaney hinself.
The sculpture also represents Delaney’s move to abstraction and to geometrical and angular forms, after his early period of representa tional and figurative art. The honeycombed circles at the centre of the two pieces are a frequent motif in Delaney’s work, especially from this period onwards. In a rare commentary that he supplied for a similar sculpture (called Finnegan’s Wake), Delaney described the interlinked circles as echoing the cyclical nature of life, death and regeneration.
Eamon Delaney, October 2024
Eamon Delaney is the author of Breaking the Mould, A Story of Art and Ireland, (New Island Publishing) which explores his father’s career and the Irish arts scene of the 1960s and 1970s.
LOUIS LE BROCQUY HRHA (1916-2012)
Image of Federico Garcia Lorca, (1978)
Oil on canvas, 70 x 70cm (27½ x 27½”)
Signed, inscribed and dated 1978 verso Opus no. 409
Provenance: With Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, label verso.
€ 50,000 - 80,000
In the midst of his preoccupation with images of the heads of Irish writers WB Yeats and then Joyce, Louis le Brocquy was also prompted to take on a subject further from home: the Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca. In the latter part of 1977 and through into the following year, the painter became engrossed in attempting a series of studies of the head of Lorca, and was drawn to make a small number of “studies in bronze of his forehead.” They were cast in bronze at the Montecatini Foundry in Italy. Le Brocquy alluded to Lorca’s lines, in his Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard, concerning a massacre in a Gypsy community: ‘Oh, city of Gypsies…?/ Who could see you and forget ?/ Let them seek you on my brow/ The play of Moon and sand.’
The painter was aware that in taking on Lorca’s “Iberian temperament” he was facing a slightly different challenge to that posed by his own countrymen. Writing in 1979, he mentioned that it was the impassioned writing of JM Synge’s dramas that provided him with “the key to an understanding of Lorca’s fierce, lyrical world.” Subsequently, he learned that Lorca had in fact admired Synge’s writing.
Like le Brocquy’s other subjects, Lorca was an extraordinary talent, whose creative imagination transcended national boundaries. Just as Joyce is regarded as quintessentially Irish and universal, so with Lorca and Spain. He fell victim to the violent cruelty of the Spanish Civil War, and he identified with outsiders in the Spanish world, the Gypsies, seeing the essence of Iberian culture in their spirit. Regarded in some respects as an outsider himself, he became in time recognised as representing the very best qualities of that spirit.
Throughout the 1970s, le Brocquy’s painterly explorations, through which he built up tenuous, speculative images in numerous overlapping layers and forays of brushwork, achieved his aim of capturing the elusive yet intense nature of the individual human consciousness, providing glimpses into the mysteries of being and creativity.
Aidan Dunne, October 2024
LOUIS LE BROCQUY HRHA (1916-2012)
The Tain Bowls, (‘Ochain,’ ‘Dubau,’ & ‘Lamthapad,’)
A set of three Irish silver bowls, inlaid with gold, Dublin 1975, 18.5 ozs each, 22.5cm (8¾“) diameter Bearing the artist’s monogram, numbered 151/250 and retailed by Sleater of Dublin. With original presentation cases. (3)
€ 1,500 - 2,500
31
Pukaki & Sand (1989)
Oil on canvas, 97 x 101cm (38 x 40’’)
Signed, inscribed and dated 1989 verso
€ 5,000 - 8,000
States of Being, (2000)
Oil on canvas, triptych, 116 x 251cm (45½ x 98¾”)
Signed and dated 2000 verso Opus no. 731
Provenance: With Gimpel Fils Gallery, label verso
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Jeanne-Boucher, 2006
€ 100,000 - 150,000
An ambitious triptych summarising decades of the painter’s work as, he termed it, “an archaeologist of the spirit”, States of Being was exhibited at the Galerie Jeanne-Boucher in Paris in 2006. It was part of an exhibition, Radiance, marking le Brocquy’s 90th birthday. The show’s title comes from Stephen Daedalus’s invocation of the ingredients of aesthetic beauty, as being wholeness, harmony and radiance (after Thomas Aquinas).
From around the mid-1950s onwards, le Brocquy was an artistic hunter whose quarry was the individual human consciousness, even though, as he noted “Evidently you cannot paint consciousness.” His approach was shaped by two decisive experiences. The first was a glimpse of some women and children against a whitewashed wall in the brilliance of noon sunlight in Spain in 1955. So intense was the light that they seemed to waver between substance and invisibility, merging with the white background. The second was stumbling on the painted Polynesian skulls in the Musée de l’Homme in Paris around the end of 1960, an event that catalysed his celebrated series of Head studies. Both were instrumental in his pursuit of conveying consciousness.
The triptych format of this work suggests multiple images, a trinity, of a single being. In the central panel the figure is, like those figures against the whitewashed wall, on the point of dissolution into the vastness of time and space. In the two flanking views, the radiance glows from within the figure against a darker, layered, echoing, recessive ground. As the artist saw it, he aimed not to depict but “to reconstitute the object of one’s experience.” There is fragility and transience, but also the burning vitality of the individual presence, a voice that insists on being heard.
Aidan Dunne, October 2024
EDWARD DELANEY RHA (1930-2009)
Cathedral
Bronze, 90cm(h) (35½’’) Unique, circa 1961
€ 10,000 - 15,000
Cathedral is a major work of sculpture by Edward Delaney RHA (1930-2009) who is considered one of Ireland’s most important 20th century sculptors. Delaney’s best known works include the 1967 statue of Wolfe Tone and the Famine Family memorial in St Stephen’s Green in Dublin and the statue of Thomas Davis and angels fountain in College Green, opposite Trinity College Dublin. These are all examples of lost-wax bronze castings, his main technique during the 1960s and early 1970s. Cathedral is in a similar vein and emulates the monumental form of these sculptures. Influenced by Celtic art and by European modernism, Delaney’s work is in many public and private collections. He was born in County Mayo and studied at the National College of Art and Design, after which he studied bronze casting and sculpture in Germany. He later received many foreign scholarships and would represent Ireland at foreign exhibitions such as the international Biennales in Paris, Tokyo and Buenos Aires.
Delaney gained a reputation not only through Dublin galleries such as Hendriks, the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Solomon, but through showing work internationally. He is also known for his small figurative bronze work, stainless steel sculptures and his drawings and paintings on paper. His work is in the collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), the Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane, OPW, AIB, Bank of Ireland, the Central Bank, the Arts Council of Ireland and the Ulster Museum among others.
Cathedral is characteristic of Delaney’s monumental, zoomorphic style and is expressly abstract as well as ‘rock-form’ naturalistic. He developed this dramatic style in tandem with his interest in the standing human and animal form. The sculpture, which has been newly patinated and mounted, is of hollow bronze but heavy, and about four feet high and two feet wide. Large scale works by Delaney rarely come up for sale and they are all unique. There are no editions.
The image here shows Cathedral from an RTE still of 1962, with the poet Patrick Kavanagh sitting in front of it. Kavanagh was a friend of the sculptor. In 2009, his son Eamon Delaney published a book about his father and the Irish arts scene of the 1960s and 1970s, entitled Breaking the Mould - A Story of Art and Ireland (2009). In the book, he describes this image as a great moment in Irish modernism -: Irish television, then in its infancy, the modern sculpture and the ‘pastoral to modernist’ poet.
He describes how, in the image - which has gone around the world as part of the famous, Writers of Ireland poster - Kavanagh actually resembles the featured sculpture.
‘Kavanagh’s pose is particularly satisfying because Cathedral is such an abstract piece’ Delaney writes. ‘Whatever about the public work, this really is modern, like a section of moon rock with a niche in its side or a gouged out tree trunk. Uncannily, the whole piece resembles the poet himself: solid, grounded and both traditional and modern, recognisable and abstract. He even shares the special quality of Eddie’s work: brute weight rendered tenderly.’
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
ALOYSIUS O’KELLY RHA (1853 - 1936)
The Christening Party (1908)
Oil on canvas, 68.6 x 91.4cm (27 x 36’’) Signed and dated 1908 (lower right)
Provenance: The Artist’s family; With Gorry Gallery, Dublin 1981; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
Exhibited: Dublin, Gorry Gallery, February 1981, no. 13; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, The Irish Impressionists, 1984, No. 25.
Literature: Niamh O’Sullivan, Gorry Gallery, An Exhibition and Sale of 18th - 21st Century Irish Paintings, 2024; O’Sullivan, Gorry Gallery, An Exhibition of 18th - 21st Century Irish Paintings & Sculpture, 2011; O’Sullivan, Aloysius O’Kelly: Art, Nation, Empire, Field Day, 2010; O’Sullivan Re-orientations: Aloysius O’Kelly: Painting, Politics and Popular Culture, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 1999; Julian Campbell, The Irish Impressionists, National Gallery of Ireland,1984.
€ 10,000 - 15,000
In 1874, O’Kelly became one of the first Irish artists to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he was admitted to the prestigious studio of Jean-Léon Gérome; separately he studied portraiture with Léon Bonnat; in addition, his early experiments in plein-air painting in Brittany were the foundations on which his work evolved. There is a striking stylistic cohesion between O’Kelly’s paintings set in Brittany in two phases, the late nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century, but these converge in two almost identical paintings dated 1908 and 1909 called The Christening Party and L’auberge By coincidence, both have come up for sale within a few months of each other. O’Kelly tended to date paintings destined for major exhibition venues such as the Royal Academy, the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Paris Salon. And indeed he did exhibit a painting in the Salon in 1909 called L’auberge The Christening Party thus predates the all-but-identical L’auberge. One surmises that he intended this painting for the Salon, but found an early buyer, and so painted a second version for Paris the following year.
The painting features a group of adults joyously holding their glasses of cider aloft. This version was given the title The Christening Party when it was exhibited in the Irish Impressionists exhibition in the National Gallery in 1984, although it not clear that it is indeed a christening, as the child must be about two-years of age, and the focus is more widely dispersed: the oval disposition is designed to lead the eye around the painting in an inclusive way.
O’Kelly was the first Irish artist to discover Brittany in the 1870s and was influential in drawing other Irish artists such as Thomas Hovenden and Augustus Burke there. Moreover, in recognizing the historical, cultural and ethnic connections between Ireland and Brittany, O’Kelly was at pains to counter the negative stereotyping of marginalized people. The American critic, E.L. Wakeman noted that ‘[t]hrough the grime and slime of their hard cold lives a few things must stand luminously revealed …. the people of Ireland and those of
Brittany are the closest of kin and from one common Celtic stock, the affection and family ties, and to neighbourhood and communal yearnings, find here universal expression to a degree that almost approaches pathos’. (Wakeman’s Wanderings, Weekly Inter Ocean, 7 January 1890). Wakeman went on to cite their respective ‘love of and reverence for babies’, as shines through here. O’Kelly’s paintings of both Irish and Breton people insistently reflect a hard-working, healthy and dignified people, as projected here.
O’Kelly moved around Brittany over more than a fifty-year period. From the distinctive clothes, the setting in this painting can be identified as the pays de Rosporden (around Concarneau and the Fôret de Fouesnant): the women wear white linen coiffes and wide collars, dark skirts, fitted bodices, embroidered waistcoats, and heavy wooden sabots; the men woollen jackets, waistcoats, bragoù-bras, black gaiters and felt broad-rimmed hats.
The table and the rush-woven Breton chairs are timeless, but other aspects identify the painting as early twentieth century, notably the visible hair of the women (previously, no self-respecting girl would have herself painted with her hair even partially uncovered). Over time, O’Kelly’s Breton landscapes and seascapes became increasingly and iridescently impressionistic, while his interior scenes retained their structure and hark back to Dutch seventeenth-century interiors and, more contemporaneously, the work of American artist, Robert Wylie. Executed towards the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the dark interior of The Christening Party, connects these paintings to a considerably earlier form of genre painting, characterized by academic draughtsmanship and conventional painting skills. Notwithstanding their archaism, the compression of so many figures in The Christening Party into such a confined space demanded considerable skill, in addition to which he countered the apparent informality of the figures by granting to each an individualised physiognomy. The loose yet controlled brushwork, broad values, and strong contrasts evident in the portraits are a testament to Bonnat’s realist teaching.
The treatment of the still life on the upper shelf verges on the semi abstract and contrast with the narrative details that include the man pouring the drink with his left hand on his companion’s shoulder, the young girl wiping the bowl, the man lighting his pipe, the shadowy figure in the background squatting low to tap the cider. The painting is full of gesture and expression. Notwithstanding the dark interior, the play of light on form, on the bottles and glasses, on the rugged furniture, on the animated faces of the figures, is typical of O’Kelly, an artist who painted sometimes separately, sometimes coterminously tightly and precisely, and loosely and freely.
Prof. Niamh O’Sullivan, October 2024
ALOYSIUS O’KELLY RHA (1856-1936)
Interior with Two Girls
Oil on canvas 91 x 73cm (35¾ x 28¾”)
Signed
Literature: Niamh O’Sullivan, Aloysius O’Kelly: Art, Nation, Empire, Dublin, Field Day, 2010.
€ 7,000 - 10,000
Throughout his life, O’Kelly returned to a series of paintings of young girls in which there is a sense of continuity, indeed a familial resemblance, as if of the same girl growing a little older. In Blowing Bubbles, A Hearty Breakfast and Seated Girl with Hydrangea Blossoms, the generic smocks connect the sitters, and the light red hair would suggest a common Celtic ethnic origin that could be Irish, Breton or American. Moreover, the informality of the portraits intimate perhaps a relationship with the artist. The paintings are undated (probably around 1910-15) and placeless – studies in childhood charm rather than location.
The fourth painting in this series, however, depicts two girls, one of whom we recognize from the other paintings. The scale here is such that one would normally associate with a commission of significance – girls from a wealthy family – if it were not for the simplicity of their dress and setting. O’Kelly is not interested in the social status of these girls – there is no attempt to contextualise them – the subject is their mood and intimacy. The melancholy is affecting; an older girl comforting a younger, tenderly, suggests a backstory. The children seem to speak eloquently of loss.
A rumour concerned with O’Kelly’s private life alleged a relationship with a French nurse in New York, but neither that nor the additional speculation that O’Kelly had a daughter have been confirmed, indeed he is recorded in the US censuses as unmarried (although that is not necessarily proof that he was not a father). Aloysius was very close to his militant republican brother James J. O’Kelly whose political activities – in which he embroiled Aloysius – necessitated extreme secrecy, and many aliases. Additionally, amid the many personal scandals
James occasioned was a series of women and, at least, one bigamous marriage in which Aloysius was decoy, one of the wives living as Mrs A. O’Kelly in Paris. This wife died tragically young having given birth to her second child (and in these annals, there is mention of third child). After moving to the US in 1895, Aloysius was closely involved in the life of a nephew, James Herbert, probably a son of his brother James. And in this family, in 1900 there occurred the mysterious death of two babies and their mother. The 1910 census then records Herbert living with his (second?) wife Jeanie, and daughter Jessie. Given the recurrence of the sitter, consistent with Jessie’s age over a four or five year period, it is likely she is one of his sitters in this series of paintings.
In the interstices between academic painting and Impressionism resided naturalism and O’Kelly was at his best in this space. In his early summers in Brittany, he was taken with the work of Jules Bastien-Lepage who spent some time there in the early 1880s. Bastien-Lepage’s dictum – to remain true to nature – was core to O’Kelly’s work. Evolving from the Realist tradition of Millet and Courbet, both Bastien-Lepage and O’Kelly shared a commitment to naturalistic landscapes peopled with honest workers who are depicted with authenticity and dignity. And under the French artist’s influence, O’Kelly lightened his palette and broke his brushstroke. As we see here, both artists worked close to his model, and on the same level, creating a marked intimacy between himself and his sitter, an intimacy that is extended to the viewer. The verticality, the closeness of the painter to the subject and the high horizon, have the effect of eliminating the traditional vanishing point and tilting the sitters parallel to the picture plane. O’Kelly clearly assimilated both stylistic and technical features of Bastien-Lepage, in effect, blending academic, realist and plein-air elements into a beguiling rural naturalism.
Prof. Niamh O’Sullivan, October 2024
RODERIC O’CONOR (1860-1940)
Reclining Nude (1921)
Oil on canvas, 72.4 x 91.5cm (28½ x 36”) Signed ‘O’Conor 1921’ (top right)
Provenance: Sale, Sotheby’s, London 26/4/1972, lot 107; With Sean O’Criadain, Dublin; Sale, Christie’s, London, 10/5/2007, lot 66; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
Exhibited: London, Barbican Art Gallery, ‘Roderic O’Conor 1860- 1940’, 1985, cat.no.78 and toured to Belfast, Ulster Museum; Dublin National Gallery of Ireland; Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery. On loan to Dublin, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, 19952000.
Literature: J. Benington, ‘Roderic O’Conor, a Biography with a Catalogue of his Work’, Dublin, 1992 Cat. No. 229, p. 217
€ 60,000 - 80,000
In the aftermath of the First World War, progressive artists such as Picasso and Matisse relinquished some of the innovatory zeal that had previously coloured their work. The pre-war headlong rush to break new ground thus experienced a slow-down, and there was a brief return to more straightforward figurative idioms such as classicism and Impressionism. O’Conor, as can be seen in this rare dated nude from the beginning of the new decade, was not immune to this trend. His inspiration seems to have come from the bathers pictures of Renoir and the classical nymphs of Rubens.
Reclining Nude is an accomplished and arresting tribute to female beauty. The model sleeps lying on her side, her legs pulled up for modesty’s sake whilst her head and shoulder rest on a cushion. A second bolster has been positioned behind the model, bringing her upper body closer to the viewer’s gaze. The cropping of the model’s ankles and feet by the lower edge of the canvas reinforces the feeling of proximity, as does the very direct and even fall of light. The artist, in other words, does everything in his power to focus attention on the shape, colour, texture and mass of the forms he is describing, and beyond that, to render palpable the “gleam of light and warmth and life” which Sickert described as the chief source of pleasure in a nude.
In the 1920s, O’Conor chose models who were young, pretty, of slender build and furnished with up-to-theminute bobbed hairstyles. That these pictures were admired by his peers is confirmed by the fact that the noted art critic, Roger Fry bought an example directly from O’Conor, on behalf of the Contemporary Art Society (now in Derby Art Gallery). Reclining Nude could have been one of the pictures Fry saw in O’Conor’s studio on the occasion of his purchasing visit in 1924. Fry would have been the first to notice that, however much the picture might owe to Renoir, it was still very much a product of its time. The subject is a modern, fashionable young woman. It is to O’Conor’s credit that, despite being in his sixties, he was not locked in the mindset of an earlier generation struggling to keep pace with the times. The 1920s was the era of jazz and jive, flapper dresses and the movies, and aside from his models, we can be sure that the artist’s young mistress, Renée Honta, helped to keep him informed about current trends.
We are very grateful to Jonathan Benington for providing the catalogue entry for this lot.
PAUL HENRY RHA RUA (1876-1958)
Connemara Landscape with Turf Stacks
Oil on canvas board, 30 x 40cm (11¾ x 15¾’’)
Signed
Provenance: with John Magee’s Gallery, Belfast, label verso; with handwritten date ‘Dec.’43’, stock no.622-33; Private Collection
€ 40,000 - 60,000
Paul Henry was born in Belfast in 1877 and attended the Belfast School of Art. He travelled to Paris in 1898, where he studied at the Academie Julian and was influenced by the rural realism of Jean Francois Millet. He later moved to Academie Carmen recently opened by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose influence can be seen in the present work. In Paris he met his first wife Grace and in 1903 they were married. After a period in London working as an illustrator, Henry moved to Achill Island in 1912, where the local landscape became the main subject for his oil paintings. In 1920 Henry moved to Dublin where, along with his wife and other painters such as Jack B. Yeats and Mary Swanzy, he helped found the Society of Dublin Painters. He stayed in Dublin for twelve years, with frequent trips back to the West of Ireland, and then moved to Co. Wicklow with the artist Mabel Young, who he married in 1954.
The present work, which dates to the late 1930s on stylistic grounds, displays Henry’s keen interest in pure landscape. It is taken to a pure form in this work, a simple scene, dominated by the range of grey hued mountains and stratified clouds with subtle pale yellow and off-white tints but this is off-set by the turf stacks, set perilously close to the bogland river that meanders through the landscape. The same turf stacks remind the viewer that the human presence is never too far away and that even a remote Connemara bogland bears the impact of man’s effort to sustain himself.
Henry often painted evening scenes, enjoying the changing of the light, as dusk is falling, casting shadows across the landscape. A sense of stillness pervades the scene and he has used a limited palette to distil everything down to the essential elements.
Widely considered the most significant Irish landscape painter, Paul Henry’s works can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Ireland, Hugh Lane Gallery, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Ulster Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
Oil on canvas, 40 x 50cm (15¾ x 19½’’)
Signed
€ 4,000 - 6,000
Watercolour, 23 x 34cm (9 x 13¼’’)
Signed
€ 2,000 - 3,000
FREDERICK OSBORNE RHA
(1859 - 1903)
Sheep in a Field
Oil on canvas, 36 x 47cm (14¼ x 18½”)
Signed lower left
Provenance: Collection of Sarah Purser to Sean Purser thence by descent to the present owners.
Literature: Jeanne Sheehy, Walter Osborne, Ballycotton, 1974, cat. no. 189, p.122-123
€ 40,000 - 60,000
In Osborne’s painting a flock of black-faced sheep are shown grazing in a field. In the foreground is a trough and wicker fence, while behind is a flat landscape and hazy blue sky. The artist spent much of the late 1880s in England painting village subjects, landscapes and farming scenes. He was enamoured with the subject of sheep and painted many pictures of flocks, sometimes with the shepherd present. In 1885 he painted small panels of sheep in a pen on sunny days, probably in Hampshire. One delightful picture The Sheepfold, for example, shows a small flock in a paddock, one black-faced sheep in the foreground looking at us with curiosity.¹ One of Osborne’s best known pastoral scenes Counting the Flock, (sold in these rooms 30 May 2018), shows a shepherd with dog and sheep in a flat landscape.²
Osborne painted further sheep subjects in Berkshire c. 1887-1888. The present picture Sheep in a Field, c.1888, shows a small flock of black-faced animals grazing or resting in a pasture, one of them close to the viewer. Like his father, animal painter William Osborne, Walter has a profound empathy for his animal subjects. He captures well the woolly coats and calm demeanour of the sheep. Two rooks or carrion crows are shown pecking at the earth. In
1. J.Sheehy, Walter Osborne, NGI, 1983, cat.no.22, illustrated.
the right foreground are a water trough and latticed wattle fence, the latter painted with such skillful realism that we almost feel we can touch it. In the distance is a landscape with small woods, and a flat horizon with hazy blue sky with clouds. The burnished tones that the artist employs: browns, bottle greens and beiges, give the painting a warm rural feeling.
It is a surprise then to see an embankment with railway line and telegraph poles cutting horizontally across the landscape behind the sheep in the middle distance. This seems like an intrusion upon the quiet, pastoral scene, (and adds an understated modern dimension to the picture). Yet Osborne himself loved to travel by train, and was engaged with contemporary life, as well as being a lover of nature and tradition.
Sheep in a Field has remained in the same family collection for over a hundred years. It was acquired by Sarah Purser, a relative and fellow painter of Osborne’s, and was displayed in her home, Mespil House, in Dublin. Subsequently it passed down through the family by descent.
Julian Campbell, 2024
2. Counting the Flock, in Important Irish Art, Adam’s, 30 May 2018, lot 32
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
41
NATHANIEL HONE RHA (1831 - 1917)
Mediterranean Coastal Scene
Oil on canvas, 85 x 127cm (33½ x 50’’)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 10,000 - 15,000
Mediterranean Coastal Scene is a fine example of Nathaniel Hone’s South of France subjects painted on a very large canvas,larger than the majority of his paintings. Hone made several visits to the Mediterranean in the 1870s and 1880s, painting at various locations along the coast, for instance at Cannes, Antibes, Nice and Villefranche, at Cap St. Martin, St. Jean-Cap Ferrat, Beaulieu, Ezé and Menton, and across the border to Bordighera in Italy. Having spent many years studying in Paris, painting in the Forest of Fountainebleu, then returning to Ireland, the sunshine and blue skies, the quality of light, the vegetation and the azure sea of the Riviera were a revelation to him. He was inspired to paint a series of colourful, light-filled watercolours and oils. These form a unique body of work in Hone’s oeuvre. Hone’s Mediterranean pictures were the first paintings which he exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin in the 1870s.
During this period many French artists were drawn to the South of France, including Harpignes and Ziem, who Hone had known at Barbizon, and Impressionists such as Renoir, Berthe Morisot and Monet.¹ The Riviera was also becoming increasingly popular as a destination for tourists seeking winter sunshine. Hone painted along the coast, and was drawn to the fishing village of Beaulieu with it’s nearby beach and stretch of cliffs, known as ‘Petite Afrique’ (Little Africa) for its sunny, temperate climate. Hone painted a series of watercolours and oils of this coastline. These
Notes
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include the superb canvases Mediterranean Coastal Scene, Beaulieu near Nice (featured in an exhibition at The Gorry Gallery in 2023),² and the present painting Mediterranean Coastal Scene. The two pictures seem to have been painted at the same location but from different viewpoints, featuring headlands, palm trees, aloes, distant cliffs and blue sea. But in the present picture Hone takes an unusual approach to composition: rather than following a classical model of placing trees at one side or both sides of the foreground to frame the landscape, he places the palm trees, rocky bluff and aloes in centre left, allowing expanses of sky to be visible behind. There is another smaller painting of a Mediterranean Coastal Scene, in the National Gallery of Ireland (cat.no.1458), which features palm trees, aloes, blue sea and distant headland, but with a villa visible behind the trees.
Hone was fascinated by aloe plants, with their sinuous, spiky leaves and striking bluegreen, viridian colour. They form a focal point in several Mediterranean paintings, and are painted in broad, defined brushstrokes, casting dark shadows beneath them. The fronds of the palm trees are highlighted with more slender, golden strokes. The foreground is freely painted in the manner that Hone used in later landscapes. The straight horizon line of the sea halfway up the picture, with pinkish-gold cliffs in the distance, anchors the composition. Hone adopts a delicate, scuffed technique in the sky – fading from blue to pale blue to a pale pink-ochre above the horizon.
Accustomed to the earthly and verdant tones and changeable skies of the Irish landscape, the sunshine, colours, pinks, blues and golds, and radiant light of the Mediterranean allowed Hone to experience nature in a new, freer way. His coastal South of France landscapes anticipate the colourful, sunny watercolours and oils that he was later to paint in Greece and Egypt.³
Mediterranean Coastal Scene is not signed or initialled, (Hone rarely signed his canvases), so it is not known if it was exhibited at the RHA in Dublin during his lifetime.
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
42
JAMES ARTHUR O’CONNOR (1792 - 1841)
Wooded Landscape with Figure
Oil on panel, 20.3 x 24.8cm (8 x 9¾”)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 3,000 - 4,000
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
43
JAMES ARTHUR O’CONNOR (1792 - 1841)
The Dargle
Oil on canvas, 34.9 x 42.5cm (13¾ x 16¾’’)
Signed and dated 1831 (lower right)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 4,000 - 6,000
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
44 WILLIAM ASHFORD (1746 - 1824)
Figures by the Temple in the Park at Mount Merrion, Co. Dublin, with Dublin and Dublin Bay in the background
Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 128.3 (36 x 50½’’)
Provenance: Christie’s 17 April 1964 (lot 46); Collection of Desmond Guinness; Christie’s 15 July 1983 (lot 25); Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
Literature: Edward Malins and the Knight of Glin, Lost Demesnes, Irish Landscape Gardening 1660-1845 (London. 1976) p. 105, fig 116; Anne Crookshank, ‘A Life Devoted to Landscape Painting, William Ashford (c. 1746-1824)’, Irish Arts Review Yearbook (1995) p. 128, no. 45; Finola O’Kane, William Ashford’s Mount Merrion: The Absent Point of View (Tralee, 2012)
€ 80,000 - 120,000
Situated on an elevated site to the southeast of the Dublin, Mount Merrion, the suburban retreat of the Viscounts Fitzwilliam, was a comparatively small demesne but it overlooked the 2,700 acre estate of the family which stretched from Merrion Square to Bray. Between 1804 and 1806 Ashford painted for the Fitzwilliams what has been termed his ‘last great commission of estate views’ (O’Kane, op. cit.), a series of oils and an album of twenty-four drawings. Ashford’s patron, the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam (1745-1816), was described by a contemporary as a ‘great encourager of the Fine Arts [who] was very liberal to those whose merits be appreciated’, among whom was the miniaturist Horace Hone, in whose London house the viscount lodged, and Ashford himself who was on friendly, as much as professional, terms with his patron. At his English home near Windsor, Fitzwilliam assembled ‘a magnificent library of book, prints, and other productions connected with the fine arts’. A somewhat idiosyncratic member of the Irish House of Lords with ‘a more complex life than is initially apparent’ (ibid.), he did not marry but had three children with
the French dancer Mademoiselle Zacharie and, rather more unusually, had, it has been suggested crypto-Catholic leanings. Fitzwilliam was himself an accomplished artist and founder of the museum in Cambridge which bears his name to which he bequeathed six of Ashford’s oil paintings of Mount Merrion in addition to the album of drawings. At least one further example from the series is preserved at Wilton, in Wiltshire, home to the Earls of Pembroke who inherited the Fitzwilliam estate from the 7th Viscount.
Here Ashford paints a summerhouse or teahouse in the form of a classical temple cited to avail of the spectacular views that Mount Merrion afforded. The painting is close in general composition to one of the set in the Fitzwilliam Museum though with numerous differences in the charmingly configured figures and animals which animate the foreground which is further enlivened by the dappled fall of sunlight. The view of Dublin in the distance is captured with great dexterity and it was for this view that Mount Merrion was famed. In November 1761 George Montague wrote to Horace Walpole on the view from this spot, and seems to have been one of the earliest to make what would become a very hackneyed comparison: ‘Nothing near Naples can be more beautiful, with such a view of the sea…as would make your Thames blush for Richmond Hill and Isleworth… such ships, such mountains, such as [the] hill of Hothe [sic] as makes one not wish for any other embellishments’. Ashford was a resident of the area overlooked by Mount Merrion. In, or about, 1782 he had moved from College Green in the city centre to Sandymount (‘a residence more suitable to the habits and taste of a landscape painter’) and commissioned his friend, the great architect James Gandon, to build a villa on a plot leased from Fitzwilliam. Finola O’Kane characterizes the Mount Merrion commission as ‘among the most significant of all the demesne landscape series in the Irish tradition, deftly describing Dublin’s late Georgian landscape at a time when it was veering to the east and moving inexorably towards the sea’.
William Ashford was born in Birmingham and christened in St Martin’s parish church on 20 May 1746. At the age of about eighteen, however, he moved to Ireland, taking the position of clerk to the comptroller of the laboratory section of the Ordnance Office in Dublin Castle, which he held until 1788. Apart from occasional visits to England and Wales, it was in Ireland that Ashford spent his lifetime. He became Dublin’s most successful landscape painter of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, succeeding Thomas Roberts who died prematurely in 1777.
In 1767, aged twenty-one, Ashford submitted his first works to the Society of Artists in Ireland, an organisation of artists who had constructed an octagonal exhibition room for annual displays in William Street, a move which galvanized art production in Ireland. Ashford’s early exhibits were not in the landscape genre for which he is almost exclusively known today. Instead he showed two still-lifes, both titled A Group of Flowers. A work of this title, dated 1766, survives in the National Gallery of Ireland and is likely to be one of these exhibits. Over the following years Ashford exhibited subjects including dead game, fruit and A Trout from Nature. It was only in 1772 that landscapes, both topographical and demesne, appeared in the exhibitions and hereafter Ashford spent his entire long career painting the Irish landscape in all its manifestations.
On Roberts’s death in Lisbon, where he had sought respite for the consumption which afflicted him, Ashford completed his rival’s great set of views of Carton, County Kildare, with two rather different pictures. Clearly in favour with the ducal Fitzgeralds, he won another important early commission for a pair of views of their ancestral home at Maynooth Castle which he exhibited in William Street in 1780. Ashford also contributed to Thomas Milton’s engraved views of Irish seats including portrayals of Belan, County Kildare (1783), Bessborough, County Kilkenny (1785) and Ballyfin, County Laois (1787). In the years after 1780 Ashford’s style broadens somewhat and when a group of his works was offered for sale in 1794, his stylistic progression could be assumed as public knowledge with the advertisement referring to ‘two landscapes in his first style’.
Ashford continued to produce exceptional work in the following decades, noticeably the Charleville Forest series of 1801, which illustrates a full understanding of Picturesque theory as it had been codified by William Gilpin (1724-1804) and others in the previous decades.
When the Charleville pictures were exhibited in the former Parliament House on College Green in 1801 an anonymous diarist was full of praise: ‘There is here abundant scope for an exertion of the artist’s genius in the delineation of foliage. The articulation is perfect and the colouring so beautifully rich, and various, that I could with pleasure have spent hours in viewing them’. In addition to demesne landscapes and topographical views, notable among them a magnificent pair showing Dublin Bay looking north and south (Adam’s, 1 June 2022), Ashford painted a few landscapes with literary narratives, such as Jacques contemplating the wounded stag, a subject taken from Shakespeare’s As You Like It (private collection). One of his most famous works, selected for the cover of Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin’s The Painters of Ireland (1978), shows tourists in search of the antiquarian picturesque exploring the ruins of Cloghoughter Castle, County Cavan. Over the course of his long life, Ashford grew rich and painted less, but increasingly became one of the key cultural figures in Dublin in the early decades of the nineteenth. Already in 1801 the anonymous diarist described him as ‘decidedly the first landscape painter’, and it is difficult to cavil at Strickland’s assessment that his ‘pictures justify the reputation he enjoyed as the foremost landscape painter of his time in Ireland’.
A Landstorm with a Ruined Bridge and River in Spate Oil on canvas 42 x 62cm (16½ x 24½”)
Provenance: With The Godolphin Gallery, Dublin; with Solomon Gallery, Dublin; with Grace Pym Gallery, May 1984 where purchased by the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
Exhibited: Possibly Society of Artists in Ireland 1769, no.62; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland ‘James Arthur O’Connor’ Nov/Dec 1985, no.7, p.40 (ill.); Belfast, Ulster Museum Feb/Mar 1986; Cork, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Mar/Apr 1986; Boston, McMullen Museum of Art ‘ÉIRE/LAND’, 2003, no.21.
Literature: Hutchinson, John, ‘James Arthur O’Connor’ NGI 1985, p.40 (ill); Breeze, George (ed) ‘Society of Artists in Ireland 1765-80, p.47 (ill); Kreilkamp, V. (ed), Exhibition catalogue – ‘ÉIRE/ LAND’, Boston 2003; Laffan, William & Rooney, Brendan, ‘Thomas Roberts – Landscape and Patronage in Eighteenth Century Ireland’, Churchill House Press, 2009, no.7, p.325 (ill).
€ 30,000 - 50,000
Storm scenes were something of a staple among Roberts’s contemporaries, the sub-genre ultimately owing its popularity to the art of Gaspard Dughet. In the Society of Artists in Dublin, Robert Carver and James Forrester had both exhibited works entitled Landstorm while, in 1769, the Dublin public had the opportunity to compare works in the genre by Roberts and two of his teachers, James Mannin and George Mullins. It has been plausibly suggested (Breeze, op. cit.) that Roberts’s 1769 exhibit, entitled Landstorm with a Waterfall, is identifiable with the present work. A river in spate flows through a bridge, one of the arches of which has been broken by the flood. Beneath a distinctly classical structure, itself ruined and overgrown, two figures in blue and red strike dramatic poses. The landscape is unusual within Roberts’s oeuvre in introducing a tragic note in these travellers who rail against the elements, rather than merely struggle through them. If this dating is correct, the painting coincides with Roberts’s breakthrough 1769 showing at the William Street exhibition room. In this year he moved from his master, Mullins’s, tavern, The Horseshoe and Magpie, in Temple Bar, to his own lodgings off Dame Street. Other exhibits that year included his masterpiece, the Frost Piece, and his View of Rathfarnham Castle.
This is one of a series of storm scenes painted by Roberts, including A Sea Storm (National Gallery of Ireland), probably the picture he exhibited in Dublin in 1771 and something of an imitation of the style of Vernet, who had been patronised by at least three of Roberts’s Irish patrons, the Earls of Leeson and Charlemont, and Richard Dawson, and, in the mid-1770s, a series of variations on the ‘landstorm with travellers’ theme, initiated in one of the upright landscape he painted for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn’s town house in St James’s Square.
Here in the insignificant powerlessness of man in the face of the hostile forces of natures, Roberts touches, more closely than usual, on theories of the Sublime as articulated by Edmund Burke (1729-97) or David Hartley (1705-57):
‘If there be a precipice, a cataract, a mountain .. in one part of the scene, the nascent ideas of fear and horror may magnify and enliven all the other ideas, and by degrees pass into pleasures, by suggesting the security from pain’. This, more romantic, approach to landscape painting was to be the element in Roberts’s art that his brother Sautelle would take further.
We are grateful to William Laffan and Brendan Rooney for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
46
THOMAS ROSE MILES (1844-1916)
Waiting for the Boats, Morning, Galway Bay
Oil on canvas 76 x 127cm (30 x 50”)
Signed; also inscribed with title verso
€ 5,000 - 8,000
47
EDWIN HAYES RHA (1819-1904)
Crossing the Harbour Bar
Oil on canvas 76 x 127cm (30 x 50”)
Signed and dated (18)’77
Provenance: With Christopher Cole Fine Paintings, label verso
€ 8,000 - 12,000
48
JOSEPH JOSHUA SEMPLE (1830–1877)
The Schooner Furness Abbey passing South Stack, Anglesey
Oil on canvas 49 x 78.5cm (19¼ x 40”)
Unframed
€ 1,500 - 2,500
49
JOSEPH JOSHUA SEMPLE (1830–1877)
The Schooner William Henry off Belfast Lough
Oil on canvas
43.5 x 69cm (17 x 27”)
Unframed
€ 1,500 - 2,500
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
King of the House
Oil on canvas, 92 x 71cm (36¼ x 28’’)
Signed
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 6,000 - 8,000
William Osborne is today best remembered as the father of the artist Walter Osborne, but was a significant artist in his own right. Born in Dublin in February 1823, he was twenty-one years of age when he entered the Royal Hibernian Academy as a student. He began exhibiting at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1851 with three works, a portrait of a Terrier Dog, a watercolour of a Boy and another of a Girl from an address in Pleasants Street in Dublin. He was elected a Member in 1868 and exhibited almost every year up to his death.
Strickland notes that Osborne devoted himself to the painting of animals, chiefly dogs and horses, which he loved and thoroughly understood and wrote ‘’His pictures of dogs, in which he excelled, are full of life and vivacity, well drawn and good in colouring, often with touches of humour, the work of a man who had made the habits and characteristics of dogs a constant study.’’
His son, Walter eclipsed the father as a painter and sadly only outlived him by a couple of years.
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
51
ANDREW NICHOLL RHA (1804 - 1886)
The Grand Harbour, Valetta, Malta
Pencil, pen, brown ink and watercolour, heightened with touches of bodycolour, 44.5 x 71cm (17½ x 28’’) Signed, lower right
Provenance: Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 28 April, 1983, lot 2556; Sale, Christie’s, London, 10 May, 2007, lot 58; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 1,500 - 2,000
52
ATTRIBUTED TO RICHARD TURNER (1798 - 1881) AND GEORGE GORDON PAGE (1836 - 1885)
A Design for the Carlisle Bridge over the Liffey, Dublin
Pencil and watercolour, 64 x 116.5cm (25 x 45¾’’)
George Gordon Page, an English engineer and his collaborator Richard Turner were entrants in the Carlisle Bridge competition of 1862, and were announced the winners ‘after a discreditable delay’ in March 1864. Page exhibited his design at the Royal Academy in 1864 (no.805).
€ 3,000 - 5,000
SARAH CECILIA HARRISON HRHA (1863 - 1941)
Self- portrait, half-length
Oil on canvas, 53 x 43cm (21 x 17”)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 6,000 - 8,000
Sarah Cecilia Harrison, an eminent figure in both the artistic and social spheres of her era, is celebrated as one of the preeminent portrait painters of her generation. Renowned for her artistic prowess, she was equally distinguished by her pioneering activism. Notably, Harrison made history as the first woman elected to Dublin Corporation, passionately championing the rights of Dublin’s underprivileged. From her office on 7 St. Stephen’s Green, she met weekly with those in need, ardently listening to and addressing their grievances. A fervent advocate for the arts, she played an instrumental role in the campaign for a modern gallery to house Hugh Lane’s collection, a legacy to which she made a personal contribution with her 1908 portrait of Thomas and Anna Haslam—leaders in Ireland’s suffrage movement—gifted to Dublin’s Municipal Gallery at Lane’s behest.
Born into affluence in Holywood, County Down, Harrison, known to many as “Cecilia,” came from a lineage of reform and resilience. She was a great-grand-niece of Henry Joy McCracken, the United Irishman, and Mary Ann McCracken, a formidable social reformer and abolitionist. Her father’s passing prompted a family relocation to London when she was just ten years old, setting her on a journey that would merge art and advocacy.
Harrison received her early education at Queen’s College, London, where her exceptional talent was soon recognized. Awarded a silver medal for painting by University College London, she then studied under the tutelage of Alphonse Legros at the Slade School of Fine Art, securing the esteemed Slade scholarship. Her artistic education was further enriched by travels across Paris, Italy, and Amsterdam, which left an indelible mark on her technique and vision.
In 1889, Harrison returned to Dublin, establishing herself as a leading portraitist in Ireland. Over her prolific career, she exhibited sixty works at the Royal Hibernian Academy and submitted numerous others to London’s Royal Academy. An honorary academician of the Royal Ulster Academy of Fine Arts, Harrison’s stature as an artist was matched by her dedication to social causes. Her brother, Henry Harrison, a Member of Parliament and supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell, mirrored her commitment to public service.
In 1912, Harrison’s election as the first female city councillor for Dublin Corporation marked a milestone in her lifelong campaign for social justice. She championed the extension of poor relief to the able-bodied unemployed and worked tirelessly for women’s rights. Harrison was also closely involved in Hugh Lane’s ambitious efforts to establish a gallery of modern art in Dublin. Following Lane’s tragic death aboard the Lusitania in 1915, she revealed their engagement, and her 1914 portrait of Lane stands as one of her most iconic works. Harrison remained unmarried, a resolute figure whose legacy endures in both the cultural and civic history of Ireland. Hon. Francis D.
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr.
SARAH CECILIA HARRISON HRHA (1863 - 1941)
Portrait of Sir Hugh Lane (1875-1915) Director of the National Gallery of Ireland 1914-1915
Oil on canvas, 61 x 45.5cm (24 x 18”)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 10,000 - 15,000
Sir Hugh Percy Lane was born in Cork in 1875 to Reverend James William Lane and Frances Adelaide Lane. Despite an unsettled childhood and minimal formal education, Lane displayed an early aptitude for the arts. His career as an art dealer began in London, where he first worked with Martin Colnaghi and subsequently with E. Trevelyan Turner. By the late 1890s, Lane had established his own gallery, rapidly emerging as one of London’s foremost art dealers. His interests and expertise were notably diverse; although he specialized in Old Masters, he also collected works by Impressionist and other contemporary artists.
Around the turn of the century, Lane cultivated connections with Irish artists and patrons, which spurred his commitment to promoting Irish art. In 1904, he organized an Irish art exhibition in London and began envisioning a modern art gallery for Dublin. This ambition culminated in the founding of the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin in 1908. He was knighted in 1909 and continued to support art institutions in Dublin, Belfast, and South Africa alongside his London gallery.
In 1912, Lane gifted a collection of paintings to Dublin. However, disputes regarding a permanent gallery location led him to retract some of these works. Lane’s life was cut short in 1915 when he perished aboard the Lusitania, which was torpedoed on a trans-Atlantic voyage. His unwitnessed codicil requested that his paintings remain in Dublin, sparking decades of legal contention. A 1959 agreement ultimately allowed the collection to alternate between London and Dublin. In recognition of Lane’s legacy, the Dublin gallery was later renamed the Hugh Lane Gallery.
Lane formed a close friendship with artist Sarah Cecilia Harrison, who was twelve years his senior. Harrison painted at least two portraits of Lane — one of which is now held by the National Gallery of Ireland, and another being the present work. In his 2000 biography of Lane, Robert O’Byrne noted that Harrison’s admiration for Lane bordered on the unhealthy, particularly after his death when she claimed improbably that they had been engaged.
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
SIR JOHN LAVERY RHA RA (1856-1941)
Portrait of Mrs. C. F. Shanks with her Dog
Oil on canvas, 76.3 x 64cm (30 x 25¼”)
Signed; Also signed, dated 1934 and inscribed ‘Mrs C. F. Shanks, Posthumous Portrait ’ verso
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 8,000 - 12,000
Lavery is renowned for his society and political portraits. These works in many ways served both the artist and sitter in their outward expression of wealth and status achieved by both in the very act of commissioning the paintings. Mrs C.F.Shanks, is depicted in half-length, looking out directly at the viewer, she has a strong confident presence that was often found in Lavery’s high society portraits. Though clothed in a fairly modest dress, placing her against a stark pale background allows Lavery to pick out the lustrous highlights of her string of pearls and pearl earrings. She is portrayed with her arm around her pet dog, and Lavery’s inscription verso indicates that the portrait, dated to 1934, was done posthumously.
Lavery’s agent Joseph Duveen had made his name in the modern art world by recognizing the opportunity that existed between the wealth, on two accounts, of art in Europe and money in the America. He was a staunch promoter of British art overseas and works that he introduced to the market became the basis for numerous museum collections across the country. Duveen had already played the important role in selling to self-made industrialists on the notion that buying art was also buying upper-class status.In the same way that commissioning artists such as Lavery to paint your portrait was a way of expressing that upper-class status for those who had massive fortunes but lacked the legacy that traditional landowning families had by virtue of their lineage.
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
56
RODERIC O’CONOR (1860-1940)
Boat in a Storm / Christ on the Sea of Galilee, (c.1898-1900)
Oil on canvas, 71.8 x 90.6cm (28¼ x 35¾”)
Stamped with the studio stamp ‘atelier O’CONOR’ verso
Provenance: Paris, Hotel Drouot, Vente O’Conor, 7/2/1956; with John Dorsay, Baltimore, March 1983; Sale, Christie’s, London, 10/5/2007, cat. no. 67; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
Literature: J.Benington, ‘Roderic O’Conor, a Biography with a Catalogue of his Work’, Dublin, 1992 ‘ Cat. No.82, p. 199
€ 40,000 - 60,000
This remarkable work belongs to a rare and evocative series of twilight and nocturnal scenes produced by Roderic O’Conor in the late 1890s. These pieces, deeply influenced by O’Conor’s engagement with the Symbolist circle—including figures like Paul Gauguin, Alfred Jarry, and Charles Morice—represent a period of introspective exploration within his Breton sojourn. Pieces such as Boat in a Storm, The Bull and The Moon, and Seascape by Moonlight stand as testaments to this Symbolist interlude, marking a stark departure from his typically observed subjects. Imbued with mystery and enigma, both in execution and interpretation, they are among the most imaginative and original works of his career. The ethereal quality of these paintings aligns them closely with the moonlit seascapes of his American contemporary, Albert Pinkham Ryder. In crafting these evocative scenes, O’Conor pays homage to Gauguin’s teachings, delving into realms of inner thought and feeling rather than mere external observation.
O’Conor’s engagement with Symbolism was so avant-garde that he worked on these paintings privately, developing them at a slower pace while concurrently producing his more immediate series of Breton seascapes. The seascapes, completed in one or two sittings with thinner layers of paint, capture the rugged and powerful landscapes of Brittany’s coastline. This experience, marked by dramatic locations and atmospheric effects, must have emboldened O’Conor to create Boat in a Storm. Here, under turbulent skies delineated by strong cloisonné contours, a two-masted boat tips precariously, its sails battered by fierce winds as it rises from a wave’s trough, poised to confront the full force of the approaching swell.
In this composition, every element serves to communicate the raw power of nature. The foreground’s serpentine brushstrokes animate the surging waves, echoing the tumultuous energy of the sky. The boat itself is positioned at the heart of a dynamic, vortex-like structure formed by intersecting diagonals—one created by the masts, the other by a bold ribbon of white paint that nearly touches the canvas’s lower edge. Through striking tonal contrasts, O’Conor amplifies the drama of the scene, framing a bright strip of sky within bands of near-black, intensifying the impending peril.
Stories of shipwrecks and loss were common within the Breton fishing communities of the 19th century, an era when O’Conor worked among Concarneau’s seafarers, including an old fisherman who served as one of his early models. O’Conor would have been familiar with Pêcheur d’Islande, Pierre Loti’s renowned 1886 novel chronicling a tragic romance set amid the Icelandic seas. It is within this secular, often harsh reality of Breton life that Boat in a Storm finds its most resonant interpretation, far removed from religious symbolism. Indeed, despite an alternative title, Christ Walking on the Sea of Galilee, the painting is better viewed as a powerful tribute to the elemental challenges faced by those who brave the sea.
The daughter of Captain Henry Charles Fox of the King’s Dragoon Guards, Kathleen Fox came of an Irish Catholic upper middle class family with a British Army tradition. She was brought up at Glenageary Hall, Co. Dublin and went to school at St. Mary’s, Ascot and Loreto Abbey Convent, Dalkey.
She entered the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in 1903 and was at first attracted by the crafts of fine metalwork and enamelling. Under the guidance of Oswald Reeves she won top prizes for her metalwork in London at the National Competitions of 1908 and 1909. She also worked on painted china, carved wood, silver, costume design and stained glass, which were aspects of the strong arts and crafts revival in Ireland.
57
KATHLEEN FOX RHA (1880-1963)
Woman on a Beach
Oil on canvas, 100 x 70cm (39¼ x 27½”) Signed lower right
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 8,000 - 12,000
However, her interest in painting was to be fired by the teaching in Dublin of Sir William Orpen, only two years her senior, who encouraged her and for whom she had a high regard. It was Orpen’s style of tonal realism acquired at the Slade School of Art, which he passed on to her and which is evident in the present work. In 1910 she was admitted to the RHA Life School. She exhibited for the first time at the RHA in 1911 with Science and Power (Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery), sometime after which she left to paint in Paris and Bruges. Later she moved to Nice where she continued to paint and exhibited in France, London and Dublin. In 1921 her work was shown at the New English Art Club, the National Portrait Society, the Royal Academy and the Royal Hibernian Academy. She returned to Dublin in the early twenties and later inherited the family home in Milltown, Dublin where she painted many interior views. For the next twenty years she worked as a highly successful portrait painter in Ireland and England but made no further submissions to the RHA until 1944. In her later paintings there is a significant and enduring transformation in terms of subject matter. Gone is the spirited work of some twenty years earlier, to be replaced by highly competent flower-studies which she exhibited throughout the 1940s and 50s and for which today, perhaps unfairly, she is best known. She died in 1963.
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
58
KATHLEEN FOX RHA (1880-1963)
Flower Study with Poppies in a Glass Vase
Oil on canvas, 75 x 50cm (29½ x 19½”)
Signed lower right
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 4,000 - 6,000
59
JAMES SINTON SLEATOR PPRHA (1886 - 1950)
Chrysanthemums
Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5cm (30 x 25’’)
Signed
Provenance: With Cynthia O’Connor Gallery, Dublin, label verso stock no. 4420; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 6,000 - 8,000
Sleator was born in County Armagh and studied at the Belfast College of Art. In 1910 he joined Orpen at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. In 1912 he went on to the Slade and from there to Paris where he spent a brief period before the outbreak of the First World War. By 1915 he was back in Dublin to teach at the School of Art and to exhibit for the first time at the Royal Hibernian Academy. Within two years he had been elected Academician. In 1920 Sleator became a founder member of the Society of Dublin Painters although his work only appeared in the inaugural exhibition, and in 1922, he left Ireland to spend five years working in Florence. When he returned he set up a studio in London where he established a successful portrait practice. As Orpen’s studio assistant Sleator often painted the sitter’s clothing and background areas in his master’s portraits, and shortly after Orpen’s death in 1931, Sleator was asked to complete a number of his unfinished commissions, including portraits of Prince Arthur of Connaught and the Duchess of Westminster. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, was friendly with Lavery and for a time took over his most celebrated pupil, Sir Winston Churchill. In 1941 he returned to Dublin, and in 1945 was elected President of the Royal Hibernian Academy, a post which he held until his death, when the position was taken by Sean Keating.
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
60
SIR GERALD FESTUS KELLY PRA, RHA HRSA (1879 - 1972)
Portrait of Sir Kenneth Lee, Seated, 3/4 Length in a Grey Suit, Oil on canvas, 100 x 75.6cm (39½ x 29¾’’)
Provenance: Christies, South Kensington, 21 November, 1983; Sale, Christies, London, 10 May, 2007, lot 71; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
Exhibited: London, Royal Academy 1955, no. 99
€ 2,000 - 3,000
Sir Kenneth Lee, 1st Baronet (1879 – 1967), was an English businessman and civil servant known for his role in the cotton industry and public service. Born into a family connected to the textile firm Tootal Broadhurst Lee, he became chairman and president of the company, pioneering scientific research and developing crease-resistant fabric processes. During WWI, Lee served on advisory committees for trade and industry, and in WWII, he was Director-General of the Ministry of Information, a trade envoy, and a Board of Trade representative in the US. Knighted in 1934, he was made a baronet in 1941 and passed away in 1967.
61
DERMOD O’BRIEN PPRHA (1865-1945)
Portrait of a Lady believed to be Lady Eva Farrer at Cahirmoyle
Oil on canvas, oval, 75 x 62cm (29½ x 24½”) With studio stamp on stretcher verso, twice
Provenance: with Cynthia O’Connor Gallery, March 1983, Cat. no. 3; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
Lady Evangeline (Eva) Farrer, second wife of Thomas Cecil, 2nd Baron Farrer, MP (1859-1940) of Abinger, Surrey was an active Liberal and suffragist. She died in 1968.
€ 8,000 - 12,000
62
HILARY HERON (1923-1977)
Jezebel
Steel, 35cm(h) (including base) (13¾”)
€ 2,000 - 3,000
63
ORLA DE BRÍ (B.1965)
Untitled Bronze, 55cm(h) (21½’’)
Signed
€ 2,000 - 3,000
€ 3,000 - 5,000
Signed
€ 4,000 - 6,000
Oil on canvas, 61 x 76cm (24 x 30’’)
Signed and dated 2000 verso
€ 5,000 - 8,000
67
PETER COLLIS RHA (1929-2012)
Above Luggala
Oil on board 21 x 26.5cm (8¼ x 10¼”)
Signed; titled on artist’s label verso
€ 300 - 400
68
EILEEN COSTELLOE (1911-1976)
November
Mixed media, 27.6 x 45.7cm (11 x 18”)
Signed
Provenance: With David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, label verso; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 600 - 800
69 SEAN MCSWEENEY (1935-2018)
The Upper Field
Oil on board, 73 x 53cm (28¾ x 21”)
Signed
€ 4,000 - 6,000
GERALDINE O’NEILL RHA (B.1971)
Gainsborough’s Birds (2008)
Oil on canvas 41 x 36cm (16 x 14¼“)
Signed; also signed, inscribed and dated verso
Provenance: With Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin, label verso
Exhibited: Dublin, Draíocht, ‘Luan an tSléibhe’ Oct/Nov 2008, (image used on Preview invitation)
€ 800 - 1,200
71
PATRICK LEONARD HRHA (1918–2005)
Waiting at the Bus Stop
Pastel 42.5 x 30.5cm (16¾ x 12”)
Signed and dated 1949
Provenance: Patrick Leonard Studio Sale, these rooms, 26/4/2006, lot 71.
€ 2,000 - 4,000
Oil on canvas, 75 x 100cm (29½ x 39¼’’)
Signed € 8,000 - 12,000
73
MARKEY ROBINSON (1918-1999)
Don Quixote
Gouache on board, 75 x 100cm (29½ x 39¼’’)
Signed
€ 6,000 - 8,000
74
BASIL BLACKSHAW HRUA HRHA (1932-2016)
Angry Robin (2004)
Oil on paper 22 x 16.5cm (8½ x 6½”)
Inscribed with title; with feint inscription from the artist to the present owner
Provenance: Given by the artist to a friend, the present owner
Literature: Basil Blackshaw and Paul Yates, ‘Mourne’ Published 2005 by Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast, ‘Angry Robin’ full page illustration accompanying the poem ‘ ‘Robin O’Mourne, Annalong’, for Smudgey.’
€ 2,000 - 3,000
75
GEORGE K GILLESPIE RUA (1924 - 1995)
River and Mountain Landscape with Cottages
Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 74.5cm (19¼ x 29¼”)
Signed € 2,000 - 3,000
76
JAMES HUMBERT CRAIG RUA, RHA (1877 - 1944)
The Bloody Foreland
Oil on canvas, 75 x 100cm (29½ x 39¼”)
Signed; also signed and inscribed with title verso
Provenance: With The Bell Gallery, Belfast, 1974, label verso
€ 10,000 - 15,000
77 ARTHUR MADERSON (B.1942)
Woman Bathing
Oil on board, 103 x 72cm (40½ x 28¼’’)
Signed, bottom right
€ 4,000 - 6,000
78 HARRY KERNOFF RHA (1900-1974)
Portrait of Nobel Laureate William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)
Pastel, 37 x 27.5cm (14½ x 10¾’’)
Signed, bottom right
€ 6,000 - 8,000
Portrait Bust of Brendan Behan
Bronze, 33cm(h) (with base) (13”) Signed
€ 1,500 - 2,000
MARJORIE FITZGIBBON HRHA (1930-2018)
Portrait Bust of Hilton Edwards
Bronze, 38cm(h) (with stand) (15”) Signed with initials and dated (19)’69
Provenance: Sale, Keane Mahony Smith, Dublin, Edwards-MacLiammóir Collection, 1983, lot 633, where purchased by the present owner
€ 3,000 - 5,000
MARJORIE FITZGIBBON HRHA (1930-2018)
Portrait Bust of Michaél MacLiammóir
Bronze, 44cm(h) (with base) (17¼’’)
Signed with initials and dated (19)’68
Provenance: Sale, Keane Mahony Smith, Dublin, Edwards-MacLiammóir Collection, 1983, lot 633, where purchased by the present owner
€ 3,000 - 5,000
83
JAMES LE JEUNE RHA (1910-1983)
Girls in a Summer Field
Oil on board 40 x 50cm (15¾ x 19½”)
Signed
€ 2,000 - 4,000
84
SIR ROBERT PONSONBY STAPLES RBA (1853-1943)
Near Cookstown, Co. Tyrone
Oil on panel, 25.4 x 45.5cm (10 x 18”)
Signed and dated 1921 (lower left)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 2,000 - 3,000
Oil on board, 38 x 51cm (15 x 20”) Signed and dated (19)’30
€ 5,000- 7,000
87
JOHN HENRY CAMPBELL
(1757-1839)
A View of the Dargle, Tinnehinch and Powerscourt, County Wicklow
Signed and dated 1805
Oil on canvas, 71.5 x 93cm (28¼ x 36½”)
€8,000-12,000
This unusually large and ambitious work by John Henry Campbell shows the famed landscape of Tinnehinch in County Wicklow which had been admired by Arthur Young in 1776:
‘Returning to Tinnyhinch I went to Inniskerry [sic], and gained by this detour, in my return to go to the Dargle, a beautiful view which I should otherwise have lost. The road runs on the edge of a declivity from whence there is a most pleasing prospect of the river’s course through the vale and past the wood of Power’s Court, which here appear in large masses of dark shade, and the whole bounded by mountains’.
Campbell shows both Tinnehinch and, in this distance, Richard Castle’s great house of Powerscourt with its flanking towers crowned by their copper domes. The Wicklow hills in the distance are framed between two repoussoir clumps of trees, while travellers, goats and cattle add variety to the foreground.
Tinnehinch had long been appreciated for its scenic qualities. It was painted by Jonathan Fisher (Fota, County Cork) and twice by Thomas Roberts (private collection and
Crawford Art Gallery, Cork). However after funds were voted by the Irish parliament to Henry Grattan to acquire an estate in the river valley, national and political resonances quickly adhered to the site, and this was particularly marked after the Act of Union dashed Grattan’s hopes for an independent Irish parliament. When Campbell’s daughter Cecilia Margaret exhibited a view of Tinnehinch at the Royal Hibernian Academy it was described as ‘looking towards Mr Grattan’s house’. A related watercolour by Campbell dated 1801 shows a similar disposition between the two houses and is inscribed by the artist ‘‘Tenehinch [sic] & Powerscourt from the Dargle’.
Born in Herefordshire in 1757, Campbell moved to Dublin at an early age where his father, Richard, worked, and ultimately formed a partnership with the leading printing firm Graisbery’s. In 1802 Graisberry & Campbell was appointed printer to the Dublin Society, printing its county surveys, a suggestive counterpart to John Henry’s visual mapping of Ireland, and particularly Wicklow’s topography. Campbell studied at the Dublin Society Schools and initially seems to have been a versatile prac-
titioner working as a scene painter, caricaturist as well as painting portraits. Soon however, he settled down to paint the Irish landscape in oil and more frequently watercolour. Early works include a drawing in the National Gallery of Ireland which is dated 1793 while in 1800 he exhibited a drawing, Moonlight, at William Allen’s Map and Print Warehouse, at 32 Dame Street Dublin. The following year, from an address of 13 Trinity Street, he showed two landscapes drawings at the Society of Artists in Ireland at Parliament House. He continued to exhibit in Dublin, at the Society of Artists and at the inaugural show of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1826. Campbell painted scenes all over Ireland including Killarney and Wicklow but also Lough Erne and Dunluce Castle, County Antrim. Having connections with Dublin printers since childhood, it does not surprise that he also worked for publishers. His drawing of the new Sarah Bridge, at Islandbridge, featured in J Ferrar’s Views of Ancient and Modern Dublin (1797). Strickland writes ‘Campbell’s works are pleasing and well painted, and as an artist, he ranks high among contemporary Irish painters’.
JAMES DOYLE PENROSE, RHA (1862-1932)
Fra Angelico Praying Before Painting
Oil on canvas
35.5 x 25 cm
Inscribed on frame: ‘Fra Angelico worked without payment: he prayed before beginning any work for Divine guidance in its conception’.
Literature: Austin Chester, ‘The Art of J.W. Doyle Penrose’, The Windsor Magazine, Volume 26 (June 1907)
The great Renaissance Florentine painter, and monk, Fra Angelico, as Guido di Pietro (c. 1395-1455) is usually known, rose from a position of comparative obscurity at the beginning of the nineteenth century to a elevated place in the pantheon of Italian painting by its end, with his portrait in mosaic included in the ‘Kensington Valhalla’ in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He was praised by George Elliot in her novel set in Renaissance Florence, Romola (1862-63), (‘Fra Angelico’s frescoes, delicate as the rainbow on the melting cloud’); admired by artists, notably Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites, and by critics such as John Ruskin, who pronounced that the painter formed ‘a class by himself; he is not an artist properly so-called, but an inspired saint’. For Ruskin the spiritual aspect of art trumped the merely aesthetic and he wrote elsewhere ‘the highest beauty has been attained only once…by a most holy Dominican monk of Fiesole’. Taking its part in this critical and popular cult of the painter this small painting by James Doyle Penrose derives from a passage in Giorgio Vasari’s life of the artist which recounts how he ‘would never take up his brushes without a prayer’, though his specific source for the quotation on the frame is Sir Edward Poynter’s book on Italian painters: ‘Fra Angelico worked without payment . He prayed, before beginning any work for Divine guidance in its conception ...’. Poynter’s text which inspired Penrose continues ‘believing himself to be so assisted, he regarded each picture as a revelation, and could never be persuaded to alter any part of it’ (‘ The Art of J.W. Doyle Penrose’, The Windsor Magazine, Vol. 26, 1907; Edward J. Poynter, R.A. and Percy R. Head, Classic and Italian Painting (London, 1880)).
Penrose follows Poynter’s text closely, showing the Dominican artist on his knees at prayer looking up for divine inspiration, which the flood of light which bathes him in the gloom of his cell suggests is forth -
coming. His palette, already spread with colours, sits on a carved walnut stool, the pigments having been ground in the pestle and mortar on the rough bench, next to which stands the work in progress, a multifigured adoration subject of haloed saints, anachronistically shown as being painted in oil on canvas. The illuminated manuscript in front of the praying saint reminds that Fra Angelico also was as a miniaturist. As a young art student, Penrose would very likely have been aware of the National Gallery of Ireland’s acquisition, in 1886, of a panel, Saints Cosmas and Damian and their Brothers Surviving the Stake, part of the predella of Fra Angelico’s great San Marco altarpiece, commissioned by Cosimo de’Medici (NGI 242, c.1439-1442).
A comparable work by Paul-Hipployte Flandrin shows Fra Angelico moved to tears by the frescoed crucifixion which he is in the process of painting (1894, Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen).
Penrose was born at Mitchelstown, Castleknock, County Dublin, in 1862. His father, also James, was a landowner from Ballykean, County Wicklow, and a member of the noted Quaker family of merchants and glass manufacturers who had come to Ireland in 1656 and settled in both Waterford and Cork. The artist’s most illustrious predecessor was Cooper Penrose the enlightened collector and patron of James Barry and Jacques-Louis David. Penrose studied at South Kensington School of Art and at the RA Schools, where he won a silver medal in 1887 and, two years later, began to exhibit. Works shown at the Royal Academy and the RHA illustrate the range of his subject matter, from Teutonic myth to historical subjects. In 1894 he showed the Punishment of Loki, a startling, Promethean image depicting ‘Loki, the Scandinavian personification of Evil’. For the RA exhibition of 1902 Penrose contributed another monastic interior, The Last Chapter, which shows the Venerable Bede dictating the final words of his translation of St John’s
Gospel shortly before dying. Other academy exhibits included historical paintings such as Lady Jane Beaufort and King James I of Scotland (RA 1900) and Margaret of Anjou and the Robber (RA 1901), and Old Testament subjects including Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (also RA 1901) and Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert (RHA 1907). In addition to historical subjects and portraits, Penrose also painted landscapes in oil for relaxation while on family holidays. Although he spent almost his entire adult life in England, Penrose identified himself very much as an Irish artist. He was included in the 1888 Irish Exhibition in London and was also represented in Hugh Lane’s 1904 Guildhall exhibition. Even much later, he was included in the 1930 Brussels exhibition of Irish art where he hung side by side with artists working in a modernist idiom, such as Mainie Jellett, who herself had made a rather different tribute to the quattrocento artist in Homage to Fra Angelico (private collection). Penrose was elected ARHA in 1901, a full academician three years later and showed fifty pictures at the annual Dublin shows; the ‘interests of the Academy’, the Council of the RHA believed, ‘were always very close to his heart’.
Penrose married Elizabeth Josephine Peckover the daughter of a Quaker banker. The couple had four sons, including Roland who was to become Britain’s leading Surrealist artist, a friend of Picasso and an eminent writer and collector. Both Penrose and his wife were devout in their Quaker faith, Roland Penrose recalled ‘I was born in a cloud smelling strongly of oil paint, honest banking and piety’. Unsurprisingly, Penrose’s beliefs were expressed in his art. His son continues: ‘My father was an academic painter of some talent, but his work always had a moral purpose, more righteous than the works of contemporaries such as Alma-Tadema, Herkomer, Swan and others whose studios he visited’. In addition to the biblical subjects noted above, Penrose painted specifically Quaker themes, notably The Presence in the Midst (1916, Friends’ House, London) which has been described as the ‘crowning exposition of the essence of Quaker worship’, and Penrose’s obituary noted how he had ‘the joy of receiving messages telling of the help and comfort which this picture brought to weary or stricken souls (The Friend, January 15, 1932). No doubt the ‘moral purpose’ that he sought in his art made Far Angelico a sympathetic subject.
William Laffan
Francis D. Murnaghan
ROBERT FOX (B.1810)
The Beggar Girl, Dorothea
Oil on canvas, 61 x 50.8cm (24 x 20’’)
Signed, lower centre
Provenance: The Thompson Collection; Sale, Christies, London 10 May, 2007, lot 69; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 1,500 - 2,000
€ 1,000 - 1,500 Hon.
Portrait of a Young Lady
Oil on board, 33 x 24.5cm (13 x 9¾”)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
91 FRANCES (FANNY) BECKETT SINCLAIR (1880 - 1951)
Portrait of a Young Woman
Oil on canvas, 55.2 x 43.4cm (21¾ x 17”)
Exhibited: Baltimore, Maryland, Walters Art Gallery, 1983, No. 24
Provenance: Sale Christies, London 10/5/2007; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 2,000 - 3,000
92
HUGH DOUGLAS HAMILTON (1740-1808)
Priscilla Wyatt
Pastel on paper, 26 x 20.5cm (10¼ x 8”)
Signed
€ 1,500 - 2,500
93
HUGH DOUGLAS HAMILTON (1740-1808)
Portrait of Margaret Logan Henderson
Pastel on paper, oval 24 x 19cm (9½ x 7½”)
€ 3,000 - 5,000
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection
94 FRANCIS WHEATLEY RA (1747-1801)
The Market Cart
Watercolour, pen and ink, 14.6 x 22.2cm (5¾ x 8¾”)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 600 - 800
95 ATTRIBUTED TO SIR ROBERT PONSONBY STAPLES RBA (1853-1943)
A Morning Ride
Oil on board, 39.4 x 30.5cm (15½ x 12”)
Bearing initials J.L. (lower left)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 2,000 - 3,000
97
JOHN FAULKNER RHA (1835-1894)
The Manor House
Watercolour 48 x 99cm (19 x 39”)
Signed and inscribed with title
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 700 - 1,000
96
FRANK EGGINTON RCA FIAL (1908 - 1990)
The River Swilly, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal
Watercolour, 38 x 53.6cm (15 x 21’’)
Signed
Provenance: With Purnell Galleries, Baltimore, Maryland, 1980; Sale, Christies, London, 10 May, 2007, lot 73; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 1,000 - 2,000
WILLIAM PERCY FRENCH (1854-1920)
Watercolour 21 x 27.5cm (8¼ x 10¾”)
Signed and dated 1902
€ 2,000 - 3,000
Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr.
Collection
River Landscape with Figure Sitting on a Rock, and Distant Castle Oil on panel, 40.5 x 60.4cm (16 x 23¾”)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 2,000 - 3,000
100 WALTER FREDERICK OSBORNE RHA (1859 - 1903)
Man in a Top Hat Smoking a Cigarette
Pencil, 16.5 x 11cm (6½ x 4¼”)
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 1,200 - 1,800
101
(1806-1870)
A Shakespearean Scene
Watercolour and body colour, 20 x 18cm (8 x 7”)
Signed with monogram bottom left
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 800 - 1,200
(1823-1885)
A Flowerpiece
Watercolour, 37 x 27.3cm (14½ x 10¾”)
Signed and dated (18)’70
Provenance: With Cynthia O’Connor Gallery, Dublin, stock no. 4762; Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 800 - 1,200
103
JOHN B. MACILWAINE (1857 - 1945)
Across Dublin Bay
Oil on board, 18 x 24.5cm (7 x 9¾’’)
Inscribed with title on handwritten label verso
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 300 - 500
LIAM BELTON RHA (B.1947)
Chair
Oil on canvas, 50 x 40cm (19½ x 15¾’’)
Signed
Provenance: Peppercannister Gallery, Dublin, label verso
€ 800 - 1,200
105
JAMES OSBORNE (1940-1992)
Horse Falling
Bronze, 30 x 43cm(h) (11 x 16¾’’)
Signed and numbered 3/10
€ 1,200 - 1,600
106
JAMES OSBORNE (1940-1992)
Striding Horse
Bronze, 41 x 32cm(h) (16¼ x 12½’’)
Signed and numbered 3/10
€ 1,200 - 1,600
107
PHILIPPA BAYLISS (NEE GARNER) (B.1940)
Flowerpiece, Cacti
Oil on canvas, 76 x 66cm (30 x 26”)
Signed lower right and dated (19)’78
Provenance: With Purnell Galleries, Baltimore, Maryland;
Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 1,000 - 1,500
108
GLADYS MACCABE HRUA ROI FRSA (1918 -2018)
Bowl of Flowers
Watercolour 44 x 54cm (17¼ x 21”)
Signed
€ 1,000 - 1,500
Pricing an Item
Oil on board 40 x 50cm (15¾ x 19½”)
Signed; titled on artist’s label verso
€ 2,000 - 3,000
110
KIERAN MCGORAN (1932-1990)
Fishermen with Basket
Pastel, 37 x 29cm (14½ x 11½”)
Signed
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent.
€ 800 - 1,200
111
BEA ORPEN HRHA (1913 - 1980)
The Rock of Cashel
Gouache, 30.5 x 50.5cm (12 x 20”)
Signed
Provenance: Collection of the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., thence by descent. -
€ 800 - 1,200
112
JAMES LE JEUNE RHA (1910-1983)
Hunting Scene
Oil on board, 34 x 45cm (13¼ x 17¾’’)
Signed
€ 1,000 - 1,500
Armstrong, Arthur 7, 8
Ashford, William 44
Bayliss, Philippa 107
Behan, John 64
Belton, Liam 104
Blackshaw, Basil 73
Boyd, John 4
Brady, Charles 2
Brocas, Samuel Frederick 99
Butler, Mildred Anne 39
Campbell, George 14, 26, 27
Campbell, John Henry 86, 87
Collier, Thomas Frederick 102
Collins, Patrick 3
Collis, Peter 67
Cooke, Barrie 31
Costelloe, Eileen 68
Craig, James Humbert 76
Cusack, Ralph 10
de Brí, Orla 63
Delaney, Edward 28, 33
Egginton, Frank 96
Fallon, Conor 16
Faulkner, John 97
Ffrench Salkeld, Cecil 5
Fitzgibbon, Marjorie 81, 82
Fox, Kathleen 57, 58
Fox, Robert 89
French, William Percy 98
Gale, Martin 66
Gillespie, George K 75
Gillespie, Rowan 17
Hamilton, Hugh Douglas 92, 93
Harrison, Sarah Cecilia 53, 54
Hayes RHA, Edwin 47
Henry, Grace 38
Henry, Paul 19, 37
Heron, Hilary 62
Hone HRHA, Evie 9
Hone, Nathaniel 41
Irish School 90
Kelly, Sir Gerald Festus 60
Kernoff, Harry 78, 85
Lamb, Charles 13
Lavery, Sir John 55
le Brocquy, Louis 29, 30, 32
Le Jeune, James 83, 112
Leech, William John 18
Leonard, Patrick 71
MacCabe, Gladys 108, 109
Maclise, Daniel 101
Macllwaine, John B. 103
Maderson, Arthur 77
McGoran, Kieran 110
McGuinness, Norah 11, 12
McNamara, Desmond 80
McSweeney, Sean 69
Middleton, Colin 6
Miles, Thomas Rose 46
Nicholl, Andrew 51
O’Kelly, Aloysius 35
O’Neill, Geraldine 70
O’Brien, Dermod 61
O’Connor, James Arthur 42, 43
O’Conor, Roderic 36, 56
O’Kelly, Aloysius 34
O’Malley, Tony 1
O’Neill, Daniel 25
Orpen, Bea 111
Orpen, Sir William 22
Osborne, James 105, 106 Osborne, Walter Frederick 40, 100
Osborne, William 50
Penrose, James Doyle 88
Roberts, Thomas 45
Robinson, Markey 73
Semple, Joseph Joshua 48, 49
Shinnors, John 65
Sinclair, Frances Beckett 90
Sleator, James Sinton 59
Staples, Robert Ponsonby 84, 95
Turner, Richard 52
Webb, Kenneth 72
Wheatley, Francis 94
Whelan, Leo 15
Yeats, Jack Butler 20, 21, 23, 24
The Auctioneer carries on business on the following terms and conditions and on such other terms or conditions as may be expressly agreed with the Auctioneer or set out in any relevant Catalogue. Conditions 17-22 relate mainly to buyers and conditions 24-40 relate mainly to sellers. Words and phrases with special meanings are defined in condition 1. Buyers and sellers are requested to read carefully the Cataloguing Practice and Catalogue Explanations contained in conditions 2 and 8.
Definitions
1. In these conditions the following words and expressions shall have the following meanings:
‘Auctioneer’ – James Adam and Sons trading as Adam’s ‘Auctioneer’s Commission’ – The commission payable to the Auctioneer by the buyer and seller as specified in conditions 22 and 26.
‘Catalogue’ – Any advertisement, brochure, estimate, price list or other publication.
‘Forgery’ – A Lot which was made with the intention of deceiving with regard to authorship, culture, source, origin, date, age or period and which is not shown to be such in the description therefore in the Catalogue and the market value for which at the date of the auction was substantially less than it would have been had the Lot been in accordance with the Catalogue description.
‘Hammer Price’ – The price at which a Lot is knocked down by the Auctioneer to the buyer.
‘Lot’ – Any item which is deposited with the Auctioneer with a view to its sale at auction and, in particular, the item or items described against any Lot number in any Catalogue.
‘Proceeds of Sale’ – The net amount due to the seller being the Hammer Price of the Lot after deducting the Auctioneer’s Commission thereon under condition 26 the seller’s contribution towards insurance under condition 28, such VAT as is chargeable and any other amounts due by the seller to the Auctioneer in whatever capacity howsoever arising.
‘Registration Form or Register’ – The registration form (or, in the case of persons who have previously attended at auctions held by the Auctioneer and completed registration forms, the register maintained by the Auctioneer which is compiled from such registration forms) to be completed and signed by each prospective buyer or, where the Auctioneer has acknowledged that a bidder is acting as agent on behalf of a named principal, each such bidder prior to the commencement of an auction.
‘Sale Agreement Form’ – The sale agreement form to be completed and signed by each seller prior to the commencement of an auction.
‘Total Amount Due’ – The Hammer Price of the Lot sold, the Auctioneer’s Commission due thereon under condition 22, such VAT as is chargeable and any additional interest, expenses or charges due hereunder.
‘V.A.T.’ – Value Added Tax.
Cataloguing Practice and Catalogue Explanations
2.Terms regarding cataloguing practice used in catalogues have specific meanings, and attention is drawn to these explanations in each published catalogue.
Auctioneer Acting as Agent
3. The Auctioneer is selling as agent for the seller unless it is specifically stated to the contrary. The Auctioneer as agent for the seller is not responsible for any default by the seller or the buyer. The Auctioneer reserves the right to bid on behalf of the seller.
Auctioneer Bidding on behalf of Buyer
4. It is suggested that the interests of prospective buyers are best protected and served by the buyers attending at an auction. However, the Auctioneer will, if instructed, execute bids on behalf of a prospective buyer. Neither the Auctioneer nor its employees, servants or agents shall be responsible for any neglect or default in executing bids or failing to execute bids.
Admission to Auctions
5. The Auctioneer shall have the right exercisable in its absolute discretion to refuse admission to its premises or attendance at its auctions by any person.
Acceptance of Bids
6. The Auctioneers shall have the right exercisable in its absolute discretion to refuse any bids, advance the bidding in any manner it may decide, withdraw or divide any Lot, combine any two or more Lots and, in the case of a dispute, to put any Lot up for auction again.
Indemnities
7. Any indemnity given under these conditions shall extend to all actions, proceedings, claims, demands, costs and expenses whatever and howsoever incurred or suffered by the person entitled to the benefit of the indemnity and the Auctioneer declares itself to be a trustee of the benefit of every such indemnity for its employees, servants or agents to the extent that such indemnity is expressed to be for their benefit.
Representations in Catalogues
8. Representations or statements made by the Auctioneer in any Catalogue as to attribution, authorship, genuineness, source, origin, date, age, provenance, condition or estimated selling price or value is a statement of opinion only. Neither the Auctioneer nor its employees, servants or agents shall be responsible for the accuracy of any such opinions. Every person interested in a Lot must exercise and rely on their own judgement and opinion as to such matters.
Governing Law
9. These conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with Irish Law.
Notices
10. Any notice or other communication required to be given by the Auctioneer hereunder to a buyer or a seller shall, where required, be in writing and shall be sufficiently given if delivered by hand or sent by post to, in the case of the buyer, the address of the buyer specified in the Registration Form or Register, and in the case of the seller, the address of the seller specified in the Sale Agreement Form or to such other address as the buyer or seller (as appropriate) may notify the Auctioneer in writing. Every notice or communication given in accordance with this condition shall be deemed to have been received if delivered by hand on the day and time of delivery and if delivered by post three (3) business days after posting.
Conflict of Interest
11. The Auctioneer affirms that no conflict of interest exists that prevents him/her providing the property service for the Client.
Records
12. The Auctioneer will keep a record of the services provided on foot of any Agreement for 6 years. All financial records must be kept for 7 years.
Bank Account
13. The Auctioneer’s “Client Account” is held at: Bank of Ireland 39 St. Stephen’s Green Dublin 2
Client Monies
14. Any interest credited to the Client Account in respect of monies held by the Auctioneer will be dispersed in accordance with the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 (Client Moneys) Regulations 2012.
Complaints
15. Any complaint which the Client may have arising under this Agreement may be dealt with by Eamon O’Connor - email: e.oconnor@adams.ie - tel: +353 1 6760261. A response will issue within 10 working days of receipt of the complaint.
Where the Client is dissatisfied with the response to the complaint received from the Auctioneer, the Client may make a complaint to: Property Services Regulatory Authority, Abbey Buildings, Abbey Road, Navan, Co Meath, C15 K7PY.
Statement of obligations on the Auctioneer pursuant to section 42 and 43 of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010
16. The Auctioneer is obliged under sections 42 and 43 of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 to report to An Garda Síochána and the Revenue Commissioners suspicious transactions and transactions involving places designated under section 32 of that Act. The maximum cash accepted per transaction is €8,000. For any cash payments in excess of €500, a PSRA cash origin form will have to completed.
Non-Payment or Failure to Collect Purchased Lots
17. If a buyer fails to pay for and/or collect any purchased Lot by the dates herein specified for payment and collection the Auctioneer shall, in its absolute discretion and without prejudice to any other rights or remedies it may have, be entitled to exercise one or more of the following rights or remedies without further notice to the buyer:
(a) To issue court proceedings for damages for breach of contract.
(b) To rescind the sale of that Lot or any other Lots sold to the buyer whether at that or any other auction.
(c) To resell the Lot or cause it to be resold whether by public auction or private sale. In the event that there is a deficiency between the Total Amount Due by the buyer and the amount received by the Auctioneer on such resale after the deduction of any necessary expenses the difference shall be paid to the Auctioneer by the buyer. Any surplus arising shall belong to the seller.
(d) To store (whether at the Auctioneer’s premises or elsewhere) and insure the purchased Lot at the expense of the buyer.
(e) To charge interest on the Total Amount Due at the rate of 2% over and above the base interest rate from time to time of Bank of Ireland or if there be no such rate, the nearest equivalent thereto as determined by the Auctioneer in its absolute discretion from the date on which the payment is due hereunder to the date of actual payment.
(f) To retain that Lot or any other Lot purchased by the buyer whether at the same or any other auction and release same to the buyer only after payment to the Auctioneer of the Total Amount Due.
(g) To apply sums which the Auctioneer received in respect of Lots being sold by the buyer towards settlement of the Total Amount Due.
(h) To exercise a lien on any property of the buyer in the possession of the Auctioneer for whatever reason.
Liability of Auctioneer and Seller
18. Prior to auction ample opportunity is given for the inspection of the Lots on sale and each buyer by making a bid acknowledges that he has, by exercising and relying on his own judgement, satisfied himself as to the physical condition, age and Catalogue description of each Lot (including but not restricted to whether the Lot is damaged or has been repaired or restored). All Lots are sold with all faults and imperfections and errors of description. None of the seller, the Auctioneer nor any of their employees, servants or agents shall be responsible for any error of description or for the condition or authenticity of any Lot. No warranty whatsoever is given by the seller or Auctioneer or by any of their employees, servants or agents in respect of any Lot and any condition or warranty express or implied by statute or otherwise is hereby specifically excluded.
19. Any amount paid by a buyer in respect of a Lot which, if it is proved within 3 years of the date of the auction at which it was purchased, to have been a Forgery shall be refunded by the seller subject to the provisions hereof, provided that:
(a) The Lot has been returned by the buyer to the Auctioneer within 3 years of the date of the auction in the same condition in which it was at the time of the auction together with evidence proving that it is a Forgery, the number of the Lot and the date of the auction at which it was purchased;
(b) The Auctioneer is satisfied that the Lot is a Forgery and that the buyer has and is able to transfer good and marketable title to the Lot free form any third party claims;
FURTHER PROVIDED THAT the buyer shall have no rights here under if:
(i) The description of the Lot in the Catalogue at the time of the auction was in accordance with the then generally accepted opinion of the scholars or experts or fairly indicated that there was a conflict of such opinion;
(ii) The only method of establishing at the time of the auction in question that the Lot was a Forgery would have been by means of scientific processes which were not generally accepted for use until after the date of the auction or which were unresonably expensive or impratical.
The buyer’s sole entitlement under this condition is to a refund of the actual amount paid by him in respect of the Lot. Under no circumstances shall the Auctioneer be liable for any damage, loss (including consequential, indirect or economic loss) or expense suffered or incurred by the buyer by reason of the Lot being a Forgery. The benefit of this condition shall be solely and exclusively for the buyer and shall not be assignable. The buyer shall for the purpose of this condition be the person to whom the original invoice in respect of the sale of the Lot is made.
Photographs
20. The buyer authorises the Auctioneer at any time to make use of any photographs or illustrations of the Lot purchased by the buyer for such purposes as the Auctioneer may require.
New VAT Regulations
21. All lots are sold within the Auctioneer’s VAT margin scheme. Revenue Regulations require that the buyer’s premium must be invoiced at a rate which is inclusive of VAT. This VAT is not recoverable by any VAT registered buyer.
Buyer’s Premium
22. The Auctioneer may also charge a fee to the purchaser “the buyer’s premium”. The buyer’s premium is a commission paid by the buyer to the Agent in addition to the sale price. The standard buyer’s premium shall be 25% inclusive of VAT, and may be subject to change.
Internet Bidding
23. These terms and conditions apply to all internet bidding at sales conducted by, or in conjunction with, Adam’s, covering both live auctions and online-only timed auctions. Internet bidding conditions are in conjunction to those which are covered in our General Terms and Conditions of Business.
Registration
Before you can bid via Internet Bidding, you must register to bid online by signing up for a ‘My Adam’s’ account. Bidders must be registered at least 24 hours prior to the start of any Sale or you may not be able to bid online in that Sale. You will be liable for any and all bids made via your account.
Internet Bidding Process
Each bid made online shall be final and binding as soon as you click the Bid button. The bidder holds sole responsibility for any bid submitted, including those made in error, and will be held liable for the full payment and collection of the lot if named the winning bidder.
In the event of a tie between a bid placed by you online and any other identical bid(s) (including bids made in person at the Sale, telephone bids, absentee bids, and other internet bids), it will be at the auctioneer’s discretion as to which bid shall be accepted.
Adam’s reserves the right to reject a registration to bid online, withdraw its permission for you to use Internet Bidding, or terminate an Internet Bidding account, for any reason at any time prior to, during or after a Sale without prior notice.
If you choose to use the Internet Bidding service, you do so entirely at your own risk. Adam’s does not take responsibility for any issues regarding internet bidding functionality or delays which may occur due to software or hardware complications.
Auctioneer’s Discretion
24. With regard to the sale of any Lot the Auctioneer shall have the following powers exercisable solely in the discretion of the Auctioneer.
(i) To decide whether to offer any Lot for sale or not.
(ii) To decide whether a particular Lot is suitable for sale by the Auctioneer and, if so, to determine which auction, the place and date of sale, the conditions of sale and the manner in which such sale should be conducted.
(iii) To determine the description of any Lot in a Catalogue.
(iv) To decide whether the views of any expert shall be obtained and to submit Lots for examination by any such experts.
(v) To determine what illustration of a Lot (if any) is to be included in the Catalogue.
Seller’s Warranty and Indemnity
25. The seller warrants to the Auctioneer and to the buyer that he is the true owner of the Lot or is legally authorised to sell the Lot on behalf of the true owner and can transfer good and marketable title to the Lot free from any third party claims. As regards Lots not held by the Auctioneer on its premises or under its control the seller warrants and undertakes to the Auctioneer and the buyer that the Lot will be available and in a deliverable state on demand by the Auctioneer or buyer. The seller shall indemnify the Auctioneer and the buyer or any of their respective employees, servants or agents against any loss or damage suffered by any of them in consequence of any breach of the above warranties or undertakings by the seller.
Commission
26. The Seller shall pay the Auctioneer commission at the rate of 10% on the Hammer Price of all Lots sold on behalf of the seller at Irish Art Sales and 17.5% on all other sales together with VAT thereon at the applicable rate. Minimum charges are detailed below. The seller authorises the Auctioneer to deduct from the Hammer Price, paid by the buyer, the Auctioneer’s Commission under this condition; VAT payable at the applicable rates and any other amounts due by the seller to the Auctioneer in whatever capacity howsoever arising. The seller agrees that the Auctioneer may also receive commission from the buyer pursuant to condition 22.
Minimum Charges: Each individual lot is subject to a minimum fee of €25.00 plus VAT.
27. Subject to the Auctioneer’s discretion, the seller shall be entitled prior to the auction to place a reserve on any Lot. All reserves must be agreed in advance by the Auctioneer and entered on the Sale Agreement Form or subsequently be confirmed in writing to the Auctioneer prior to auction. This also applies to changes in reserves. A reserve may not be placed upon any Lot under €500 in value. The reserve shall be the minimum Hammer Price at which the Lot may be sold by the Auctioneer. A reserve once in place may only be changed with the consent of the Auctioneer. A commission shall be charged on the ‘knock-down’ bid for Lots which fail to reach the reserve price. Such commission shall be 5% of the ‘knockdown’ bid (Buying In Fee). This commission and any VAT payable thereon must be paid before removal of the Lot after the auction. The minimum commission hereunder shall be €25 per lot. The Auctioneer may in its sole discretion sell a Lot at a Hammer Price below the reserve but in such case the Proceeds of Sale to which the seller shall be entitled shall be the same as they would have been had the sale been at the reserve.Unless a reserve has been placed on a Lot in accordance with the provisions set out above such Lot shall be put up for sale without reserve. In the event that any reserve price is not reached at auction then for so long as the Lot remains with the Auctioneer and to the extent that the Lot has not been re-entered in another auction pursuant to condition 36 the seller authorises the Auctioneer to sell the Lot by private treaty at not less than the reserve price. The Auctioneer shall ensure that in such a case those conditions herein which concern mainly the buyer shall, with any necessary modifications, apply to such sale.
Reserve Instructions
Fixed - sell at a pre-determined value, no higher than the low estimate Discretion - sell up to 10% below the low estimate
Wide Discretion - sell up to 30% below the low estimate
No Reserve - sell to the highest bidder
Sell - sell to the highest bidder at any amount irrespective of the Lot value
Loss Warranty
28. Unless otherwise instructed by the seller, all Lots deposited with the Auctioneer or put under its control for sale shall automatically be insured by the Auctioneer under the Auctioneer’s own fine arts policy for the median estimate, as determined solely at the Auctioneer’s discretion.The seller shall pay the Auctioneer a contribution towards such insurance at the rate of 1.5% of the Hammer Price plus VAT. If the seller instructs the Auctioneer not to insure a Lot then the Lot shall at all times remain at the risk of the seller who undertakes to indemnify the Auctioneer and hold the Auctioneer harmless against any and all claims made or proceedings brought against the Auctioneer of whatever nature and howsoever and wheresoever occurring for loss or damage to the Lot. The sum for which a Lot is covered for insurance under this condition shall not constitute and shall not be relied upon by the seller as a representation, warranty or guarantee as to the value of the Lot or that the Lot will, if sold by the Auctioneer, be sold for such amount. Such insurance shall subsist until
such time as the Lot is paid for and collected by the buyer or, in the case of Lots sold which are not paid for or collected by the buyer by the due date hereunder for payment or collection such due date or, in the case of Lots which are not sold, on the expiry of 7 days from the date on which the Auctioneer has notified the seller to collect the Lots.
Professional Indemnity Insurance
29. The Auctioneer holds PI Insurance with:
Insurer’s Name: Hiscox Insurance PLC
Address: The Hiscox Building, Peasholme Green, York, YO1 7PR, UK.
Duration of Agreement
30. Duration of this agreement shall commence from the the date of consignment, as recorded on the sale agreement/receipt, and shall continue in force until the property is either sold or collected (The Contract Period). If terminated before the end of the contract period, 30 days notice shall be given.
Termination of Agreement
31. The Agreement can be terminated at the complete discretion of the Auctioneer at any time, subject to the 30 days notice, as outlined in condition 30. A vendor is able to end an agreement at any point up to the sale of the Lot but will be held subject to charges for withdrawn Lots, as outlined in Article 35.
Recision of Sale
32. If before the Auctioneer has paid the Proceeds of Sale to the seller the buyer proves to the satisfaction of the Auctioneer that the Lot is a Forgery and the requirements of condition 19 are satisfied the Auctioneer shall rescind the sale and refund to the buyer any amount paid to the Auctioneer by the buyer in respect of the Lot.
Payment of Proceeds of Sale
33. It is a condition of sale that payment to the seller cannot be made unless the buyer has paid, and their funds cleared through our bank. The Auctioneer shall remit the Proceeds of Sale to the seller not later than 30 days after the date of the auction, provided however that, if by that date, the Auctioneer has not received the Total Amount Due from the buyer then the Auctioneer shall remit the Proceeds of Sale within 7 working days after the date on which the Total Amount Due is received from the buyer. If credit terms have been agreed between the Auctioneer and the buyer the Auctioneer shall remit to the seller the Proceeds of Sale not later than 30 days after the date of the auction unless otherwise agreed by the seller. If before the Total Amount Due is paid by the buyer the Auctioneer pays the seller an amount equal to the Proceeds of Sale then title to the Lot shall pass to the Auctioneer. If the buyer fails to pay the Auctioneer the Total Amount Due within 14 days after the date of the auction, the Auctioneer shall endeavour to notify the seller and take opinion of the Auctioneer feasible, shall endeavour to assist the seller to recover the Total Amount Due from the buyer provided that nothing herein shall oblige the Auctioneer to issue proceedings against the buyer in the Auctioneer’s own name. If circumstances do not permit the Auctioneer to take instructions from the seller or, if after notifying the seller, it does not receive instructions within 7 days, the Auctioneer reserves the right, and is hereby authorised by the seller at the seller’s expense, to agree special terms for payments of the Total Amount Due, to remove, store and insure the lot sold, to settle claims made by or against the buyer on such terms as the Auctioneers shall in its absolute discretion think fit, to take such steps are necessary to collect monies due by the buyer.
34. If the seller resides outside Ireland the Proceeds of Sale shall be paid to such seller in Euros unless it was agreed with the seller prior to the auction that the Proceeds of Sale would be paid in a currency (other than Euros) specified by the seller in which case the Proceeds of Sale shall be paid by the Auctioneer to the seller in such specified currency (provided that the currency is legally available to the Auctioneer in the amount required) calculated at the rate of exchange quoted to the Auctioneer by its bankers on the date of payment.
35. Once catalogued, Lots withdrawn from sale before proofing/publication of Catalogue will be subject to commission of 5% of the Auctioneer’s latest estimate of the auction price of the Lot withdrawn together with VAT thereon and any expenses incurred by the Auctioneer in relation to the Lot. If Lots are withdrawn after proofing or publication of Catalogue they will be subject to a commission of 10% of the Auctioneer’s latest
estimate of the auction price of the Lot withdrawn together with VAT thereon and any expenses incurred by the Auctioneer in relation to the Lot. All commission hereunder must be paid for before Lots withdrawn may be removed.
36. Where any Lot fails to sell at auction the Auctioneer shall notify the seller accordingly and (in the absence of agreement between the seller and the Auctioneer to the contrary) such Lot may, in the absolute discretion of the Auctioneer, be re-entered in the next suitable auction unless instructions are received from the seller to the contrary, otherwise such Lots must be collected at the seller’s expense within the period of 30 days of such notification from the Auctioneer. Upon the expiry of such period the Auctioneer shall have the right to sell such Lots by public auction or private sale and on such terms as the Auctioneer in its sole discretion may think fit. The Auctioneer shall be entitled to deduct from the price received for such Lots any sums owing to the Auctioneer in respect of such Lots including without limitation removal, storage and insurance expenses, any commission and expenses due in respect of the prior auction and commission and expenses in respect of the subsequent auction together with all reasonable expenses before remitting the balance to the seller. If the seller cannot be traced the balance shall be placed in a bank account in the name of the Auctioneer for the seller. Any deficit arising shall be due from the seller to the Auctioneer. Any Lots returned at the seller’s request shall be returned at the seller’s risk and expense and will not be insured in transit unless the Auctioneer is so instructed by the seller.
Photographs and Illustrations/Marketing Charges
37. The seller authorises the Auctioneer to photograph and illustrate any Lot placed with it for sale and further authorises the Auctioneer to use such photographs and illustrations and any photographs and illustrations provided by the seller at any time in its absolute discretion (whether or not in connection with the auction).
Catalogue illustrations are included at the discretion of the Auctioneer. Marketing charges will be calculated as a scaled fee, working off the hammer price as per the table below. All prices are subject to VAT at the standard rate.
€0-€500 hammer price
€501-€2999 hammer price
€3000 and above hammer price
Outlay Charges
€25
€50
€100
38. Where additional costs from third parties have acrued from the handling and selling of a Lot, the seller authorises the Auctioneer to deduct these charges from the Total Amount Due. These charges include, but are not limited to, charges concerning carriage, restoration, framing and repair and are set by the third party. Where the Lot is not sold, these charges will be billed directly to the client. VAT
39. It is presumed, unless stated to the contrary, that the items listed herein are auction scheme goods as defined in the Finance Act 1995.
Artist’s Resale Rights (Droit de Suite)
40. Government Regulations (S.1. 312/2006)
Under this legislation a royalty (droit de suite) is payable to living or deceased (up to 70 years from date of death) artists of E.U. Nationality on all works resold for €3,000 or more, other than those sold by the artist or the artist’s agent.
The resale royalty payable is calculated as follows:
From €3,000 to €50,000 4%
From €50,000.01 to €200,000 3%
From €200,000.01 to €350,000 1%
From €350,000.01 to €500,000 0.5%
Exceeding €500,000 0.25%
The total amount of royalty payable on any individual sale shall not exceed €12,500.
The seller is liable for payment (paragraph 7.1 of Government Regulations (S.1. 312/2006)) of this royalty on completion of the sale. The artist may request from the Auctioneer any information necessary to secure payment.
Unless otherwise directed by the vendor, the Auctioneer will automatically deduct the amount due from the proceeds of sale and will hold in trust for the artist or their representative the said sum.
Introduction
This guide outlines the Value Added Tax (VAT) treatment of lot(s) sold at auction through Adam’s. It covers the most common types of transactions, although other situations may arise. As every buyer’s situation is different, we cannot offer specific tax advice. In all cases the relevant tax legislation takes precedence. You are advised to, and are responsible for, obtaining independent tax advice where necessary.
Depending on the status of the lot, and your status as a buyer, VAT may be charged on the hammer price, the buyer’s premium or both. Any such taxes will be identified at lot level, therefore it is important to familiarize yourself with the key symbols below.
Most lot(s) are sold in accordance with the Irish Auctioneer’s Margin Scheme and accordingly VAT will not normally be charged on the hammer price. Adam’s must bear VAT on the Buyer’s Premium and hence will charge an amount in lieu of VAT at the standard rate on these premiums i.e., the invoiced buyer’s premium of 25% will therefore include the VAT. Said lots are identified with no symbol denoted beside the lot number.
A limited range of goods, including most books, are subject to a 0% rate of VAT and therefore no amount in lieu of VAT will be added to the Buyer’s Premium. Ɵ
Where Lots have been imported from outside the European Union, and are under a Temporary Admission Authorisation, they will be denoted by the symbol * shown beside the lot number in the catalogue. They may be subject to additional charges on the hammer price which should be the relevant prevailing rate in the jurisdiction of import on the date of importation.
No symbol This is an Irish Auctioneers Margin Scheme lot. 23% Irish VAT will be charged on the ‘buyers’ premium’ only and invoiced on an inclusive basis. Total payable 25%
* Lot imported under Temporary Admission. 13.5% Irish import VAT will be charged on the ‘hammer’ price and 23% Irish VAT will be charged on the ‘buyer’s premium’ and invoiced on an inclusive basis under Irish Auctioneer’s Margin Scheme rules. Total payable 38.5% (See below for more information)
0 VAT Zero-rated items (Ireland only) Total payable 20.325%
General
Exporting Lots from the European Union
Where a Lot is exported from the European Union in accordance with the conditions detailed below the VAT may be cancelled or refunded by Adam’s as follows: 1. Lots sold under the Auctioneers Margin Scheme – the amount charged in lieu of VAT on the buyer’s premium. 2. Lots under the Temporary Admission Authorisation - the amount charged in lieu of VAT on the buyer’s premium PLUS the prevailing Irish import VAT.
Original correct export document is required from the Irish Revenue Commissioners showing that the lot has been exported from the European Union.
A. Cancellation of VAT charges
Where a buyer instructs an Adam’s authorised carrier to facilitate the transportation of the lot then a zero-rated invoice can be issued. The proof of export in the form of an export declaration to the Irish Revenue Commissioners will be facilitated by Adam’s customs agent.
B. Refund of VAT Charges
Where a buyer makes their own arrangements for transportation of the lot(s), the buyer must pay for the lot(s) in full including all elements of the Irish VAT. ONLY upon receipt of satisfactory proof of export (i.e. a copy of the export declaration to the Irish Revenue Commissioners showing that the lot has been exported from the European Union) will Adams then refund to the Buyer the amount of VAT initially paid.
1. VAT TO BE REFUNDED MUST BE €50 OR MORE PER SHIPMENT
2. A PROCESSING FEE OF €20 (PLUS ANY APPLICABLE VAT) WILL APPLY.
Adam’s, upon request and for an administrative fee, may apply for a license to export your lot(s) outside of the EU.
Miscellaneous
1. Buyers from outside the European Union should note that upon importing lots to their final destination outside the European Union, local import VAT, import duties, sales taxes and/or use taxes may be payable. Please consult your local tax advisor.
2. If you purchase a lot which is under a Temporary Admission Authorisation (indicated by a * symbol and intend to export it from the European Union for repair, restoration or alteration, please contact Adams before collection. Failure to do so may result in the import VAT becoming payable immediately and Adam’s being unable to refund the VAT charged on deposit.
3. If you collect the Lot from Adams in Ireland with a view to “hand-carrying” it back to its final destination, you must pay the Irish VAT in full. Adams cannot cancel or refund the Irish tax in these circumstances.
Go to www.adams.ie. Choose the auction you wish to view from the Auctions/Forthcoming auctions menu, and you will be offered a range of ways to view. You may choose to view a digital version of the printed catalogue in the view e catalogue option or explore the virtual 3D option which allows you explore the saleroom with easy to navigate options or view the list view which opens automatically. This last option provides additional information and photographs of each lot as you choose the View Details button. Lastly, and only during office hours, there is a live chat button onscreen. If at any time you have a question whilst you are online, you can open a live chat and one our staff can help you.
Watch the Auction and bid live with Adam’s Live
Log on to our web site www.adams.ie and create an account by signing up and registering your particulars online. The process involves supplying valid credit card information. This is a once off request for security purposes, and once the account is activated you will not be asked for this information again. The card information supplied is securely stored by Sage Pay. You can leave absentee bids online, and add, edit or amend bids accordingly as well as bidding over the internet in real time through ‘Adam’s Live’. You can also view your invoices, bid history, wish lists & other useful functions including paying your invoice and creating you very own personalised catalogue with search tags that will notify you once a catalogue is uploaded for your key word search.
Circular navigation points allow you to walk around the viewing room
points provide
We are delighted to advise that our own on-line bidding platform, Adam’s Live, is now fully operational for those who wish to bid online and watch the auction as it happens.
On the Live platform you can arrange to bid as the auction is taking place or at any time leave comission bids and the Adam’s Live platform will bid on your behalf.
Bidding through this portal will attract no additional internet surcharge for lots purchased so in effect those bidders will pay the same as a room bidder. Online bidding through the-saleroom.com and invaluable.com remains unaffected.
Sign up today for your own My Adam’s account and start saving on your on-line purchases.
“An Irish Connection to An International Market”
