THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency has yet to turn a profit, but the National Gallery is to get a market return from the agency’s activities.
A painting by John Lavery entitled The Return from Marketis to be donated to the gallery by Nama in return for the gallery storing the art collection of property financier Derek Quinlan, which Nama has seized and is in the process of selling. Mr Quinlan, who owes Nama some €230 million, handed over a dozen paintings – including the Lavery – after Christmas.
Nama has had the painting valued at €300,000. It changed hands publicly in 2001 when it was sold by Sotheby’s in London for £465,000. The painting, signed and dated 1884-1887, is considered one of Lavery’s better early works from a summer visit he made to an artists’ colony at Grez-sur-Loing in France. Lavery died in 1941. The gallery said yesterday it hoped to have the painting on public view by mid-June.
A spokesman for Nama said yesterday it had “decided as a goodwill gesture to the National Gallery and to the Irish people to offer the National Gallery one piece of art from the collection for free given the fact that they advised it was of importance to the heritage of Ireland.”
Other paintings in the collection include works by Andy Warhol, Jack B Yeats, Roderic O'Conor, and Paul Henry. The collection was estimated to be worth €5 million at one point, but is now said to be worth half that. The Yeats painting, Sailor Home From Sea, was bought through de Veres art auctions in 2005 for €105,000.
Nama said the remaining paintings had also been valued and would be offered for sale to the Office of Public Works, the National Gallery and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. If they do not buy them, they will be sold on the open market.
Many of the paintings used to hang in Mr Quinlan’s home on Shrewsbury Road, one of the most upmarket addresses in Dublin.
He left Ireland for Switzerland in 2009 before relocating to London in recent months. So far he has repaid about €140 million owed to Nama, but still has debts of €230 million.
Nama took enforcement action against Mr Quinlan last month over his debts, appointing a receiver to nine properties owned by him and his family. An accountant and former tax inspector, Mr Quinlan was one of the most active property purchasers during the boom.
