Fonsie Mealy

Irish castle home of earls about to be turned into hotel and spa furnishes a remarkable sale

A portrait of Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift that has hung at Howth Castle since 1735 sold for €234,000 (£200,000) this month.

The so-called Irish Crown Jewels or State Jewels of Ireland, were created in 1831 for the Sovereign and Grand Master of the Order of St Patrick. The order was established as an Irish equivalent of the English order of the Garter and the Scottish Order of the Thistle.

Bid to €10,000 (£9100) in a timed online sale at Fonsie Mealy (25/20% buyers premium) this summer was a two-volume collection of medical and other receipts compiled by Mrs Mary Leadbeater (1758-1826).

Literary lots in a recent Irish sale included one of a thousand signed copies of the 1922, limited-edition issue of 'The Trembling of the Veil', one of William Butler Yeats’ autobiographical works.

Consigned from a scholarly collector in New Zealand, a pair of relief-carved ivory panels was the among the highlights of Fonsie Mealy’s (22% buyer’s premium inc VAT) Castlecomer sale on November 26.

In stark contrast to the elegant dolls’ houses which took the higher bids at a recent auction (ATG No 2403), a shillelagh was evidence of violence and tragedy in 19th century Ireland.

Although catalogued as ‘Continental’, this mid-19th century porcelain figure of a seated semi-nude ballet dancer below carries impressed marks for the factory established by the English entrepreneur Francis Gardner in the town of Verbilki near Moscow in 1766.

Stand-out lot in a recent Irish sale was one of the 100 special copies of Ulysses printed on Dutch handmade paper by Van Gelder that James Joyce signed on publication in Paris in 1922.

Godwin Swifte, who styled himself as Lord Carlingford, was a member of one of Ireland’s notable families and a maverick of early flight.

With ‘on the premises’ country house contents sales now so rare, the more usual practice is for the better pieces to be removed to saleroom bases.

Some 150 lots of books formed part of a recent Irish auction held at Fortgranite, Baltinglass, in Co Wicklow, the home for over 200 years of the Dennis family.

On account of its relative scarcity, all Irish silver carries a premium. It is the pieces made in small provincial centres that are most highly prized.

A label to this 21 x 16½in (53 x 42cm) print reads 'Photograph of the Moon, taken by Prof Henry Draper, MD, with a silvered glass Telescope, Fifteen and a Half Inches Aperture, Hastings NY September 3rd 1863'.

A massive 3ft (92cm) high majolica urn – a riot of grotesque masks, mythical figures and other motifs drawn from Renaissance sources – combining the talents of two key figures in the history of the Minton factory was included in Fonsie Mealy’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale on March 5.

Although catalogued as 18th century, this marquetry table cabinet – sold for a multi-estimate sum in Ireland last week – is more probably late 16th or early 17th century.

While the market shows increasingly discerning tastes, quality definitely counts at auction.