The recent Irish art auctions conducted by both the James Adam salerooms and De Vere's have proven very successful, as a glance at some of the latter's results on today's page will indicate. Many of the best-selling lots at the De Vere's event healthily surpassed their earlier estimates, so it is likely that Whyte's, which entered this market only a couple of years ago, is hoping for similar results next week.
Almost every aspect and era of Irish art is represented in the auction of some 260-odd lots, and the prices are equally varied. At the top end of the spectrum are a couple of works by Jack B Yeats, invariably popular regardless of how other artists perform on such occasions. The first of these, lot 69, called Sweets, Tobacco, Blood and Thunder, was painted in 1946 - making it relatively late in Yeats' career - and shows the interior of an old-fashioned confectioner's shop, depicted in brilliant colours appropriately reminiscent of boiled sweets. It carries a pre-sale estimate of £40,000 to £60,000 while the slightly earlier, The Ford, is expected to go for £25,000 to £30,000.
Discovered in England recently, another entry in the same sale is a painting by Nathaniel Hone with the self-explanatory title Children by the Seaside at Malahide. This, of course, was the area in which Hone lived, and for many years the work was owned by the daughter of one of the three young girls shown in the centre foreground; its estimate is £12,000 to £15,000. Even more fascinating for the scene it depicts is a view of Amiens Street in Dublin painted in the mid-1850s by a journeyman artist called R Manning. The left-hand section of the canvas is occupied by a corner of the still-extant terminus, then run by the Dublin & Drogheda Railway Company. However, little else will be familiar to anyone visiting this area today. The picture is expected to make £5,000 to £7,000.
Look out also for another couple of views of a disappeared Dublin in two successive lots. The first of these is a watercolour cityscape by Norah McGuinness (£5,000 to £7,000) dating from the early 1940s and showing the approaches to St George's Church and Hardwicke Place, an area comprehensively redeveloped by the local corporation. Less obviously identifiable is the location for Harry Kernoff's oil on board view of an inner city district called The Green Door (£15,000 to £20,000).
These two paintings provide a striking contrast to the abundance of west of Ireland landscapes with which this country's artists have been so long enamoured. Among those represented in the present sale are Maurice Wilks, Frank Egginton and Douglas Alexander. Finally, among the women who are included here, two pictures are particularly worthy of attention. The more important is a very striking rooftop view of La CharitΘ sur Loire with the river visible in the background, painted presumably in the 1920s by Letitia Marion Hamilton (£10,000 to £12,000). The other is much more a jeu d'esprit, a delightful ink and watercolour image of ballerinas by the 19th century Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford, whose work remains relatively under-appreciated despite its charm (£600 to £800).
Taking place in the Minerva Suite of the RDS, Dublin, this latest Irish art auction begins at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
