Limerick artists feature in Sotheby’s Irish art sale

A PAINTING which hung for years in the Captain’s Room of the Hunt Museum will go under the hammer at the next Sotheby’s sale of Irish art.

The sale, taking place on October 21 in London, is being billed as the biggest auction of Irish art since the economic recession, featuring 72 lots of well-known artists.

The Hunt confirmed that Sir William Orpen’s painting, A View from Howth Head towards Bray Head and the Sugarloaf, had been removed from its walls by the owner of this work, as well as a number of others they owned in Dublin’s Hugh Lane gallery.

The owner, who wishes to remain private, has now decided to sell the paintings which have been removed from both galleries and sent to London after the National Gallery of Ireland issued the relevant export licences to Sotheby’s. The paintings had been on loan for more than 15 years.

Sir William Orpen’s painting, dating from 1912 during the artist’s annual holiday at Howth Head, has a top estimate of £120,000 (€165,000). It was acquired by its owner in 1997 at the Pyms Gallery in London for an undisclosed sum and then loaned to the Hunt Museum in Limerick.

A piece by Diana Copperwhite, from Patrickswell and a former student of the Limerick School of Art and Design, entitled Invisible City, has a guide of £4,000 to £6,000 (€8,000).

Lot number 51 is a painting by Charles Harper RHA, who also studied at the LSAD and is a member of the Limerick Life Drawing Society, entitled Blue Race. It has a guide of up to €6,000.

Limerick born Sean Keating is also represented in the auction with a piece entitled The Goose Girl, which has a guide of up to €20,000. Keating studied under Sir William Orpen at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin from 1911.