Paul Henry’s The Potato Harvest, depicting Mayo people digging for potatoes, set a world record price at auction for the Irish artist last week, selling for more than €1 million at Sotheby’s in London.
Henry, described as a “visual poet” of the west of Ireland by Sotheby’s, is known for his landscapes and seascapes of Achill Island, where he lived between 1910 and 1919.
The Potato Harvest, an oil on canvas, which had an estimate of £250,000-£350,000, gained the top price in the Sotheby’s auction in London on October 14th, selling for £883,200 (€1,048,535), including the buyer’s premium.
André Zlattinger, head of UK and modern art in Europe for Sotheby’s, says the painting was bought by an international collector with Irish roots, who already has Paul Henry paintings and other Irish works.
“Paintings by Roderic O’Conor, William Orpen and Paul Henry are sought after by Irish collectors, expat Irish collectors, American, English and international collectors,” he says.
Irish art, he says, is comparable to Scottish and modern British art in terms of price and demand, adding that beautiful figurative paintings such as The Potato Harvest and Turf Gatherers by Paul Henry rarely come up for auction.
“There is a number of them in public collections, but there has only been a handful of them in auctions over the last 20 years,” he says.
Arabella Bishop, an art adviser in Dublin, says the world-record price achieved by Paul Henry “demonstrates the appetite that exists for Irish art internationally and highlights the value of exposing our artists to a wider pool of collectors”.
Bishop believes such international exposure strengthens its international reputation, and proves there is a wider market appeal for Irish art. The previous highest price achieved for a Paul Henry painting was £622,500 at a Christies auction in July 2021 for the painting, Mountains and Lake, Connemara.
Other Irish artists also made an impact at the auction of modern British and Irish art. William Orpen’s painting Little Spanish Dancer – which was auctioned for the first time – sold for £358,400, almost double its lower estimate of £180,000 at Sotheby’s.
Gerard Dillon’s Boy Catching Crabs in Connemara sold for £281,600 to an international collector – more than double its upper estimate of £120,000. And Roderic O’Conor’s painting, Red Rocks and Foam, sold for £243,200, above its estimate of £150,000-£200,000.
Not all Irish paintings sold – two Jack Butler Yeats paintings and a Paul Henry failed to sell. It shows that even works by these famous artists are sensitive to asking prices.
Also in London, Christie’s held an auction of British and Irish art on Wednesday, where another Paul Henry painting, The Fairy Thorn (£100,000-£150,000), held in the same collection since 1929 went under the hammer. It sold for well in excess of its estimate, achieving £256,000. It was first exhibited in New York as part of Contemporary Irish Art: First American Exhibition and bought by John Jakob Raskob, a prominent businessman who built the Empire State Building in New York. Jack Butler Yeats’s The Crown of Ocean, painted in 1945, had an estimate of £100,000-£150,000 and sold for £128,000.
Paul Henry’s The Fairy Thorn sold for £128,000 in London, well in excess of its estimate.
There were also high expectations for the Gerard Dillon painting The Cottage Window (£70,000-£100,000), which had been in the collection of the late Zoltan Lewinter-Frankl since 1950, the year it was painted. Hungarian-born, Belfast-based Lewinter-Frankl was a significant patron of fine art in Northern Ireland, collecting works by artists including Dillon, Colin Middleton, Daniel O’Neill, Basil Blackshaw and others. It sold for £200,000.
Meanwhile, new collectors of art looking to buy more affordable paintings by living Irish artists may be drawn to works in the current online auction of prints, paintings, photographs and posters by Lot 100, which ends on November 3rd.
Some of the standout pieces in the current auction include Cora Cummins’s etching Hedge Verge (€300-€400), Gillian Hennessy’s oil on canvas, Coastal Lines (€500-€700). The watercolour on paper of Lake Constance by Sophia Rosamund Praeger (1867-1954) also has a keen estimate of €300-€500. The Co Down born artists and sculptor also wrote and illustrated children’s books as well as providing botanical illustrations from the books of her brother, the naturalist, Robert Lloyd Praeger.
Lake Constance by Sophia Rosamund Praeger 
Cora Cummins’s etching Hedge Verge (€300-€400) 
Gillian Hennessy: Coastal Lines (€500-€700)
Finally, antique dealers throughout Ireland mourned the death of Robin O’Donnell this week. O’Donnell, who ran Hibernian Antique Fairs in venues throughout Ireland for over 30 years, was an enthusiastic and charismatic promoter of antiques and fine arts. A friend to small dealers and antique shop owners in towns across Ireland, he described himself in an Irish Times interview with Michael Parsons in 2016 for this column as “a complete antiques nut who loved everything old”. O’Donnell grew up in Limerick and ran an antiques shop in that city from 1984 to 2000. He lived with his wife Lorraine in their home near Ballina, Co Tipperary. O’Donnell died on Sunday, October 18th, following a short illness.
The late Robin O’Donnell, of Hibernian Antique Fairs
sothebys.com; christies.com; arabellabishop.com; lot100.ie
What did it sell for?
Gerard Dillon: Boys Catching Crabs in Connemara Boys Catching Crabs in Connemara, Gerard Dillon
Estimate £80,000 – £120,000
Hammer price £281,600 (€336,000)
Auction house Sotheby’s
Roderic O’Conor: Red Rocks and Foam Red Rocks and Foam, Roderic O’Conor
Estimate £150,000 – £200,000
Hammer price £243,200 (€288,727)
Auction house Sotheby’s
Nathaniel Hone, the younger: Coastal Scene at Kilkee, Co Clare Coastal scene at Kilkee, Co Clare
Estimate €6,000-€8,000
Hammer price €7,000
Auction house Fonsie Mealy
Pair of 19th-century Meissen Schneeballen vases Meissen schneeballen vases
Estimate €3,000-€5,000
Hammer price €9,500
Auction house Fonsie Mealy
A porcelain blue and white plate from the Chinese Qing dynasty. Early Chinese Qing dynasty plate
Estimate €1,500-€2,000
Hammer price €1,400
Auction house Fonsie Mealy