AN INTERESTING house contents auction in south Co Dublin is likely to attract considerable attention. Well-known antiques collector and retired solicitor Noel Purcell (90) is selling the contents of Westbury, his home at Willowbank in Monkstown.
Auctioneer Rory Guthrie of de Veres said many of the pieces had been inherited but that Purcell had also bought from shops and fairs in Dublin and abroad. “Everything is in excellent condition, to the point where most items have their original key,” he says.
The sale features 350 lots with furniture, silver, glass, porcelain, objets d’art, cut-glass chandeliers, prints and paintings by artists such as Letitia Hamilton, Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Mildred Anne Butler, Markey Robinson and JH Craig.
Highlights include an early 19th-century giltwood four-branch convex mirror (€4,000-€6,000); Children Paddling by Mildred Anne Butler (€2,000-€4,000); and a pair of mahogany-framed, Gainsborough-style 19th-century armchairs (€1,500-€2,500).
Porcelain collectors will be interested in a Meissen piece, dated 1740, depicting Count Brühl’s Tailor (€2,000-€3,000), which was modelled by Johann Joachim Kändler.
Rugby fans might like a 15-inch bronze by John Behan of Noel Mannion, who played 16 times for Ireland at number 8 and is best-remembered for a try he scored against Wales in the 1989 Five Nations when he ran the length of the pitch before falling over the line (€2,500-€3,500).
Viewing begins next Friday, September 16th, at the house in Monkstown, and de Veres will hold the auction at 2pm on September 19th in the Presbyterian Hall on York Road, Dún Laoghaire.
