IT'S RARE THESE days to come across a really good house contents sale, but Adam's will have one next week when it sells the contents of the Ballsbridge home of the late judge Dermot Kinlen.
Judge Kinlen, who made many controversial pronouncements on the prison service in his time as Inspector of Prisons, died late last year, and his house on the Merrion Road is shortly to be sold by Lisney. The sale includes some fine mirrors, Irish tables and chests, dining chairs galore - the judge was one of the best hosts in Dublin - and collections of porcelain and silver.
Much of the furniture was collected by his father, Louis Kinlen, who came from a well known family of builders - his father's company built Roundwood Reservoir and several of the large houses in the Burnaby estate in Greystones. Louis married Aileen O'Donnell, daughter of MP Tom O'Donnell, and the family lived in Darwin Hall, Rathfarnham, but the contents of that grand house were transferred to Wentworth on the Merrion Road, where they formed a grand back drop for the judge's soirées.
The most interesting lots in the sale include a pair of fine William Moore demi lune side tables estimated at €50,000 to €70,000, and some excellent Georgian giltwood mirrors estimated between €8,000 and €15,000.
Though antique furniture is a little out of fashion just now, the sale is likely to attract a good legal crowd, who will also have a chance to invest in the judge's collection of Irish pictures which Adam's is saving for its big art sale in May.
