THE volatile nature of the Irish art market was demonstrated yet again last Tuesday evening at the de Veres auction held in the National Concert Hall in Dublin. Overall, auctioneer John de Vere White judged the occasion a success, with some 82 per cent of the 170 plus lots sold.

And some pictures impressively surpassed their estimates, particularly two late entries in the catalogue. One of these, a large oil by Sean Keating which Mr de Vere White entitled A Quiet Word (although others preferred to consider it a representation of the evening Angelus) eventually sold for £28,000, even though it carried the much lower estimate of £10,000-£15,000.

Similarly, a typical Paul Henry landscape called Still Water sold for £15,000, comfortably above its upper estimate. Other good sellers were two portraits by Patrick Tuohy; his Young Girl Seated In An Interior went for £9,000, while a portrait of Lady de Courcy Wheeler made £6,000. Mainie Jellett's substantial 1933 canvas of Achill Horses sold for £16,500 and Gerard Dillon's Still Lee With Donkey fetched £14,000.

But there were some disappointments on the night. Both Roderic O'Conor's Girl With Red Waistcoat and Walter Osborne's Street Scene failed to find buyers at the auction, although they were subsequently sold for £15,000 and £12,500 respectively. And neither of the two small Jack B. Yeats oils formerly owned by the late Mary Lavin secured an immediate sale; Mr de Vere White said afterwards that he was confident there was sufficient interest in these pictures to find them buyers in the near future.

Other leading prices included £4,000 for William Sadler II's View of Poolbeg Lighthouse £8,700 for both Patrick Hennessy's Bird And Butterfly and Nathaniel Hone's A French Landscape; £6,000 for Walter Osborne's Estuary With Houses And Boats; £6,200 for Charles Lamb's The Gossips; £13,000 for Sir John Lavery's The Garlanded Girl; £10,500 for Sarah Cecilia Harrison's The Breton Boy, and £6,000 for a Seated Female Nude by the same artist; £4,700 for Tom Carr's Lishane Lake; and £5,500 for Tony O'Malley's Island of the Arawaks.