Irish art market rebounds

Whyte's auctioneers said Monday night's Important Irish Art auction at the RDS – where 85 per cent of lots sold – had produced the company's "best results since 2008". Top lot was a portrait of British actress Gladys Cooper by Sir William Orpen which made €175,000, well above the estimate (€80,000-€120,000) and the top price paid for a painting at auction this year. The buyer was a British collector based in Monaco.

A Bacchante, a painting dated 1910 by Sir John Lavery, sold for €135,000 (€60,000-€80,000) and the buyer was also British. Maam Valley, Connemara by Paul Henry sold to a Dublin collector for €52,000 (€30,000-€40,000). Girl In A Garden by Patrick Swift – depicting the artist's girlfriend, US poet Claire McAllister, in Dublin's Hatch Street in 1953 – sold to a collector in England for €20,000 (€20,000- €30,000). See whytes.ie

On Wednesday at Adam's in St Stephen's Green, a sale also titled Important Irish Art achieved a sold rate of 80 per cent and the top lots all sold for well above their top estimates.

A Jack B Yeats painting Roundstone, Connemara made €58,000 (€25,000-€35,000); A Farmstead, Co Armagh by John Luke €40,000 (€20,000-€30,000); A Street In Rabat, Morocco by Sir John Lavery €38,000 (€10,000- €15,000); and a bronze sculpture O'Carolyn –Spirit of the Blind Harpist by Rowan Gillespie €17,000 (€5,000-€7,000). See adams.ie