THE LAST major art auction of the year attracted large crowds to Adam’s saleroom in central Dublin on Monday night.

The fine art auctioneers claimed the sale offered “the finest collection of pictures offered in years”. There was standing room only and bidding was brisk with 81 per cent of lots sold for a total of just over €2 million.

Four of the five top sellers were paintings by Jack B Yeats and Paul Henry, confirming what one auction-goer described as “the conservative mood” gripping the Irish art market.

The lot with the highest estimate, Jazz Babiesby Jack B Yeats, sold for €480,000 to an unnamed Irish buyer – short of its low estimate of €500,000. The painting last appeared at auction in 1981 when it was sold by Sotheby's in Slane Castle, Co Meath, for just £14,000.

It next surfaced in London at Pyms Gallery in Mayfair, where it was acquired by the current vendor, in a private transaction in 1988, for an undisclosed sum.

Among the sculpture lots, the best-seller was Patriarchby Frederick McWilliam which made €58,000 (its estimate was €30,000-€50,000).

But the unexpected star lot of the evening wasn't art but a gold pocket watch once owned by John O'Connell, the caretaker of Glasnevin Cemetery. He featured as a character in James Joyce's Ulysses– under his own name and was described wearing the watch during the funeral sequence in chapter six of the novel.

The watch was consigned to sale by a descendant of O’Connell’s and had an estimate of €8,000-€12,000. But after very spirited bidding, the hammer eventually came down at €60,000.

The buyer, a man from Co Kildare who didn't wish to be named, said he had bought it as an heirloom for one of his sons whose birthday falls on Bloomsday (June 16th), the date on which the action in Ulyssesunfolds.