THE celebrated relaunch of Sotheby’s Irish Art Sale in London is set to be the best quality sale to happen in years.
Loyal collectors from both Ireland and around the world will come together on Wednesday, October 21 to mark the 20th anniversary year of the international auction house’s first ever dedicated offering of Ireland’s finest works.
A rich variety of work from leading figures integral to the history of Irish art, including William Orpen, Jack Butler Yeats and other prominent artists of the 20th century will be auctioned in the English capital.
Amongst the collection of works in the 71-lot sale are a number of hidden gems, including a stunning John Lavery portrait Alice on Sultan, Tangier.
Offered on the market for the first time in its history, the sale of the Belfast-born artist’s portrait of his young stepdaughter riding a horse in Morocco, at a time when motor transport remained relatively rare, is one of the sale’s highlights.
“It’s been in the family ever since it was painted, it’s come through descent,” says Arabella Bishop, Head of Sotheby’s Ireland. “It’s lovely because it’s never been on the market before so that’s a fantastic lot.”
Ms Bishop believes that paintings such as these, along with a recovering Irish economy and an improving market for Irish art, makes 2015 an exciting time to relaunch the Irish Art Sale after its four-year hiatus.
“We first introduced Irish Art Sales 20 years ago, and then in 2011 we combined doing British and Irish sales because the market had changed slightly since 2008,” she adds.
“We felt the time is right to reintroduce them, the economy is picking up but it’s not just that, we’ve a broader international interest in Irish art as well. In fact last year over 70 per cent of our buyers actually came from outside Ireland, quite a few diaspora I would have thought.”
Jack Butler Yeats, The Talkers (Photo: Sotheby's)Whilst the prices for work by some Irish artists fell during the economic downturn, sales of paintings by ‘blue-chip’ artists such as Lavery, Roderic O’Conor, Orpen and Yeats remained relatively stable.
“Someone like Paul Henry who had three pieces in the sale buckled that trend and since 2008 his prices are probably more than they were during the boom times,” she says.
A plethora of top quality paintings have also inspired the return of the dedicated Irish sale, and with 16 years of experience at the helm of auctioning Irish art, Ms Bishop pinpoints some of the sale’s star attractions with the greatest global appeal.
Lavery’s Japanese Switzerland – an oil on panel piece of Wengen in Bernese Oberland after a heavy snowfall in November 1912 – is expected to fetch a top price of £500,000 at the auction.
Having most recently been on loan at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, Ms Bishop said that she had not seen a picture of that quality come up for sale in recent years.
“You don’t picture Lavery as just being Irish, because of his Scottish roots, but the imagery is very much international,” she says. “It’s museum quality work.”
Similarly, Dublin native Orpen’s Nude Girl Reading - described as one of his most erotically charged works - captured the image of his mistress Yvonne in the early 1920s and carries a price tag in the same range.
Although both pieces are priced at half a million pounds, the most expensive Irish painting to date sold by Sotheby’s at a dedicated Irish sale was Orpen’s Portrait of Gardenia that sold just shy of £2million, more than double its estimated price, in 2001.
The auction house’s location in the English capital, coupled with a broader audience with the inclusion of a range of work by contemporary artists, has made this year’s Irish Art Sale a lucrative and exciting event.
“We’re very lucky holding the sales in London because we have such a good footfall, often people walk past the picture and fall in love with the picture itself, rather than knowing who the artist is and collecting it simply because it’s an Irish artist,” Ms Bishop adds.
Basil Blackshaw’s Grand National-inspired piece and a portrait by Patrick Swift – an ex-flatmate of artist Lucien Freud – of his brother, are two of the more modern pieces on offer to a shifting audience.
“With contemporary artists it’s a good entry level, as I say it broadens our audience,” she says.
“The contemporary side was more affected during the downturn but with it now internationally doing extremely well there are some artists amongst that that are on the international platform as well. It’s great to have early 20th century work right through to the present day."
