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The article explores the concept of investing in artworks by 19th-century Irish artists, whose paintings are currently selling for significantly lower prices compared to contemporary art. It highlights the aesthetic appeal of their romantic landscape depictions and suggests that artists like Percy French and Mildred Anne Butler represent good value opportunities for collectors looking to start or expand their art collections.
Some Irish art from this period is selling for a fraction of the price of work by more contemporary artists Clontarf St, Cork by Felix Faulkner, a contemporary artist based in Co Waterford, is for sale in the current Lot 100 online auctionis currently selling well, what if you decided instead to take a longer-term view and invest in the work of artists whose paintings aren’t making high prices at the moment?artists born in the 19th century whose work is currently selling for a fraction of the price of works by more contemporary artists.
Their somewhat romantic representation of the landscape is in stark contrast to more abstract landscape paintings of contemporary artists; but this gentleness has an appeal all of its own. Arabella Bishop, independent art adviser, says there is a lot of good value in the period.
“There were a lot of very talented Irish artists painting in the 19thcentury who are often overlooked now,” she says. She mentions artists such as Sir Frederick Burton, Richard Thomas Moynan, Bartholomew Watkins, Andrew Nicholl and Daniel Maclise – all of whom have pieces in the National Gallery of Ireland. In terms of work for sale at auctions, paintings by William Percy French often come up. Roscommon-born Percy French began songwriting while studying engineering at Trinity College Dublin.
He also became a prolific painter of landscapes in watercolour and considered art to be his true vocation, according the Cavan County Museum, which has a Percy French gallery. His painting Peat Stacks, Connemara is for sale in Morgan O’Driscoll’s current online art auction. Ómós review: Faultless cooking already at two-star Michelin level. Get in before prices riseA long road to Ireland: ‘The Irish are very secretive.
They don’t tell you stuff’ Mildred Anne Butler is another artist worth considering for anyone starting an art collection. One of Ireland’s first professional female artists, who exhibited widely, she sold well throughout her career. The gardens and fields of her family home in Kilmurray, Thomastown, Co Kilkenny were the inspiration for a lot of her paintings. Butler’s Garden at Kilmurray is also in Morgan O’Driscoll’s current online art auction.
Peat Stacks, Connemara by William Percy French is for sale at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current online art auction Mildred Anne Butler’s Garden at Kilmurray is in Morgan O’Driscoll’s online art auction Roscommon- born artist Seamus Coleman, who died in January 2025, is a more contemporary artist who also focused on landscapes and countryside scenes, albeit with a more vibrant palette. Cutting Turf, Connemara , will appeal to anyone who remembers the back-breaking work of cutting turf for winter fuel, a common activity for decades in this country.
Dublin-born and Sligo based artist Sean McSweeney was a self-taught artist influenced by artists including Jack B Yeats. His abstract landscape painting entitled Evening Bogland – also for sale at Morgan O’Driscoll’s art auction – is in stark contrast to the aforementioned more representational works by French, Butler and Coleman. Sean McSweeney's abstract landscape Evening Bogland , Morgan O’Driscoll’s art auction Letitia Marion Hamilton is an Irish artist who worked and exhibited internationally.
As with several artists from the period, landscapes, market and hunting scenes were the focus of her work. A small framed print, entitled Fair Day at Castlepollard, has an estimate of €100 to €150, and the sale includes two other prints at Lot 100’s current online auction of 20th and 21stThe Lot 100 auction house, based in Lismore, Co Waterford, specifically aims to attract new collectors with its wide range of prints and affordable paintings.
The current online auction – which ends on September 15th – also has some fascinating pieces by Felix Faulkner, who is based in Cappoquin, Co Waterford. Faulkner’s vibrant work offers buyers a much more modern take on rural Ireland where tractors, sheds, containers and other paraphernalia are elevated simply by being chosen as objects for her landscape paintings. The piece, Clontarf St, Cork, with an estimate of €400-€600 is one such entry-level piece.
Finally, collectors of rare and vintage books should take some time to check the catalogue for Purcell’s upcoming books auction on September 16th. Photographic portrait of WB Yeats by Alexander Robert Hogg in a BBC studio in Belfast in 1931 , Purcell's books auctionThe WB Yeats sale is mainly made up of the libraries of the late Prof Warwick Gould and his wife Deirdre Toomey, both of whom were prominent Yeats scholars.
Australian-born Gould was the founding director of the Institute of English Studies at the University of London, and an internationally renowned scholar of Irish and English literature. He is best known for his work on the Irish Literary Revival and WB Yeats in particular. Toomey, also a Yeats scholar, co-edited The Collected Letters of WB Yeats Volume 2 1896-1900 with Gould and John Kelly. The couple were both frequent visitors to the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo.
As well as a vast collection of various editions of Yeats poetry books , and two striking photographic portraits of WB Yeats by Alexander Robert Hogg from 1931 , the auction has other gems. These include the complete volume of the Letters of Virginia Woolf; a book on Irish lace-making by Eileen O’Connor ; and the lesser known collection of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales, A House of Pomegranates for €600-€900.
Book auctions such as this one are also excellent places to buy books to fill a new library. Purcell’s has up to 20 lots of mixed book collections, with estimates of €60-€120 per lot.
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