World record prices were set for two paintings at the fourth Irish sale held by Sotheby's in London last Thursday. Singing, "Oh, Had I the Wings of a Swallow" by Jack B. Yeats was bought by a private Irish collector for £881,500 sterling, while Girl in a Bedsitter With a Cat by Gerard Dillon fetched £89,500.

Both paintings comfortably exceeded their guide prices, which were £70,000£100,000 and £10,000-£15,000 respectively. The Yeats painting was painted in 1925 and is one of the earliest major works executed in the artist's mature style. The picture shows a girl the artist came across on a train out of Dublin, singing to the passengers.

Gerard Dillon's painting shows the artist's London flat at 102 Abbey Road, London. The piece represents one of a number of works around this period which moved away from the west of Ireland subjects to focus on domestic scenes. William Leech's painting, The Pier, Concarneau (£188,500, with a guide price of £70,000£100,000), Jack B. Yeat's The Railway Bar (£177,500, with a guide price of £50,000£70,000) and Sir John Lavery's A Summer Day, Tangier (£144,500) made the other top prices of the day. However, the latter sold below its guide price of £150,000£200,000.

Irish buyers were strongly in evidence at the Sotheby's sale and four of the top lots came home, as it were - two sold to private Irish collectors and two to trade buyers from Ireland. Eighty per cent of the lots, which included paintings, ceramics, furniture and silver, were sold and the auction brought in a total of almost £4 million (£3,773,963).

All prices quoted are in sterling.