Auctions of country house contents always draw a crowd and Adam's is expecting plenty of interest in a sale entitled "The Contents of Courtown House and Stud" on Wednesday week, April 22nd. Not to be confused with the Co Wexford seaside resort, this Courtown is located near Kilcock, Co Kildare – close to Exit 8 on the M4 Dublin to Galway motorway.
The house itself is not for sale. Courtown – a 54-room Georgian mansion on 400 acres – was sold recently to Luke Comer, a Co Galway-born, Monaco-resident developer, for a reputed €10.2 million.
The vendor, solicitor Brendan O’Mahony and his family, have lived there since 1981.
Comer’s plans for Courtown are not known. But the public will get, what may be a last chance, to see the demesne during Adam’s’ on-the-premises viewing during four days beginning next Saturday.
Don’t expect Downton Abbey opulence. Nor a traditional Anglo-Irish “Big House” sale. The original contents of Courtown were auctioned off in the 1960s when the gentry departed.
But two lots in the catalogue can be traced back to former owners of the house: a mahogany dining table which “dates to c.1820” and is attributed to Gillingtons (the renowned early 19th-century Dublin cabinet-makers) estimated at €25,000- €35,000; and a pair of George III inlaid mahogany diningroom pedestals, with surmounted lidded urns (€15,000-€20,000).
Other highlights include a carved giltwood side table, bought at the Carton House auction in 1977, estimated at €20,000-€30,000; and a pair of Irish Regency neo-classical torchères (see left) – “attributed to Del Vecchio, Dublin” (€20,000-€30,000).
Adam’s say “the contents on offer in the sale are all entirely from Courtown House, with no additional lots from other vendors”– but that’s hardly significant. Many of the 600 lots are the kind of standard items that can be found routinely in fine art and antiques auctions in Irish salerooms. Most have estimates in the hundreds rather than thousands of euro and the sale is essentially a large house clearance with a classic mix – pictures, brown furniture, silver, various collectibles, garden statuary, taxidermy – and humdrum “everyday” items.
Quirky lots include a British red telephone box (€1,000-€1,500) and “a yellow-piped navy blue footman’s jacket” (€10-€20). The paintings are described, accurately, as “a very diverse collection. . . with quite traditional and decorative 19th century gilt-framed landscapes and seascapes, hunting scenes and portraits” and, rather unexpectedly, “numerous examples of 1970’s and early 1980’s avant-garde Irish art” by artists that “have really been largely forgotten”.
For directions, viewing times and further details see adams.ie
