While some of the 11 pictures by Jack Yeats which are included in next Wednesday's Irish art sale at the Adam's salerooms will make the occasion's best prices, other items on offer deserve equal notice. As so often when a large collection of Irish pictures from the 18th to the 20th century are gathered together, certain leitmotifs become apparent.

Among them is the abiding strain of romanticism in Irish landscapes, a tendency to focus on rural life's more charming aspects rather than what was - and is - often a harsh existence. The many examples of Paul Henry's work for sale emphasise this feature, particularly a work such as his Dingle Peninsula (£30,000-£40,000), in which a pale palette of neutrals and completely softened focus give a dream-like quality to the view. Similarly, Henry's Cottages in a Western Mountain Landscape (also £30,000-£40,000), with its large expanse of sky and dark ridge rising behind the cluster of houses, is more preoccupied with producing an agreeable composition than conveying the reality of life in such a setting; this is a far remove from the artist's relatively early Achill Island pictures, in which the cruel reality of existence in the west of Ireland is brought to the fore.

Art from the 19th-century, naturally, abounds with such romantic approaches to landscape, seen here through such pictures as James Arthur O'Connor's Sunset over a Rocky Wooded Valley with Figures (£25,000-£30,000). O'Connor was one of Ireland's arch-romantics and his canvas, accordingly, bears almost no resemblance to any kind of reality in this or any other country. But even views that are supposed to be of specific identifiable places were frequently presented in a gentle light. This is true of Harry Kernoff's The Twelve Bens from Renvyle (£8,000-£12,000), in which the folds of a summer landscape placidly roll into one another until they disappear in a blue haze. And Percy French's extensive Bogland Landscape (£10,000-£15,000) primarily concentrates on the effect of evening light on water to create a picture of considerable charm.

More obvious - and recent - instances of romanticism in Irish art are abundant in this sale, such as Frank McKelvey's Summer (£12,000-£16,000), in which a group of children gather flowers in a sunlit field, and Patrick Hennessy's photo-realist Evening (£3,400-£4,600), which shows a horse meandering through the open countryside.