A canvas dating from 1882 yesterday set a world record for a painting by Walter Osborne, Robert O'Byrne reports. Called Beneath St Jacques, Antwerp, the picture sold for £345,000 (including premium) at an auction of Irish art conducted in Dublin by the James Adam Salerooms and Bonhams of London. The pre-sale estimate for the painting was £150,000 to £200,000. The previous record for a work by Osborne was set at Sotheby's in the spring of 1995 when his Spoilt Pets made £271,000. The combination of great competence and often winsome charm has ensured abiding appeal for the artist's oeuvre.
A relatively early work, Beneath St Jacques, Antwerp, shows three figures and a kitten on a lane in the Flemish town, where he was studying painting at the time. For many years in the collection of the Curran family of Dublin, it last came on the market in the early 1970s. The picture was included in the 1983 Osborne exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland. According to Mr James O'Halloran of Adam's, yesterday's purchaser is Irish.