Skip to main content

Bankable Artworks...

Investors snap up 'bankable' artworks...

WORKS from famous landscape artists are being snapped up by investors as 'bankable' options for their nest eggs.

Antiques, furniture, art, gold, stamps and coins are once again being purchased as long-term investments, according to people in the auction industry.

It comes as property values continue to fall and confidence in the stock markets -- and particularly in bank shares -- remains fragile.

Now those with money to invest towards their retirement are looking to the art world.

"They think they (paintings) are bankable and they are probably right," said Ian Whyte, managing director of Dublin auction house Whyte's.

"I remember particularly in the late '70s, when inflation was running at 18pc to 20pc a year, people were purchasing tangible art collections, antiques, furniture, stamps and coins.

"People are uncertain about banks and they want to buy into something tangible. Property is not even proving attractive and it is interesting to sit and look at a painting hanging on a wall."


A traditional Paul Henry landscape last seen in public almost a quarter of a century ago is expected to cause a flurry of bids when it goes under the hammer later this month.

Mr Whyte said the sought-after work -- which dates from 1925-1935 and has an estimated price tag of between €60,000 and €80,000 -- had all the essential hallmarks of a Paul Henry work, including the cottages, turf stacks, looming mountain and domineering sky.

View

Fine art expert Dr SB Kennedy, who penned a biography on Henry, who died in 1958, pinpointed the view as that of Achill Head, with the Croaghaun mountain in Co Mayo in the background.

A work by Henry, 'Fisherman in a Currach', fetched the highest price for an artwork at auction in Ireland last year when it was sold for €145,000.

Mr Whyte said Paul Henry's paintings, watercolours by Jack B Yeats and works by eccentric figurative Belfast artist Markey Robinson were still viewed as long-term investments.

A number of early works from Robinson have been estimated at €5,000 to €7,000 for the 200-lot Irish art auction at Whyte's off Molesworth Street in Dublin on May 30.

However, Mr Whyte added: "I would have been getting €15,000 to €20,000 a few years ago in the boom time."



Report by Louise Hogan - Irish Independent

Popular posts from this blog

Property Ireland - Irish Land Values Go Up Like A Rocket & Fall Like A Stone...

Land values go up like a rocket and fall like a stone... SITE EVALUATION: Why would a developer bid €225,000 an acre in 1999 and €2.8m an acre in 2007? Bill Nowlan explains WHY HAS THE value of development land fallen so precipitously, by over 50 per cent in the past 12 months, when residential and other property values have only fallen by 25 per cent or 30 per cent? There is an old property cliché which says that "land values go up like a rocket and fall like a stone" and this seems to have been bourne out in Ireland over recent years. Why does this happen? To answer this question requires an insight into the way developers prepare their bids for development land and I set out below a glimpse into that process. Let me start by looking at how a developer in normal times estimates his bid for a plot of land with planning permission, which in estate agents' parlance is ready-to-go. The key starting point in a developers equations is the expected sale price of the finished b...

Property Crash Homes For Sale...

Hundreds of repossessed homes in Ireland to be sold by auction... UK property consultancy Allsop to hold auction in April at Dublin's Shelbourne hotel: Flats in Ireland that could have fetched €150,000 in the Celtic Tiger years are to be put on the market for as little as €25,000 (£21,000) in the country's first ever mass auction of repossessed homes. And, in a sign of how wide the property crash is, the latest item to turn up in liquidation sales in Dublin is a job lot of 15 cranes, including a pair towering over Anglo Irish Bank's half-built headquarters in the city's docklands. "Tower cranes were among the most sought-after heavy plant and machinery 10 years ago," Ricky Wilson of Wilsons Auctions says. "You couldn't buy them quick enough. Now they are left idle for two or three years on sites." He has 15 cranes worth €500,000 going on sale on 26 March, with German, Dutch and Polish buyers expressing interest. But it is the auction ...

As Featured On Dublin Postcards, Ad's, U2 Video...

I see in the Irish Independent today an item concerning a favourite, Dublin landmark, of mine... "THEY have featured in numerous postcards and a very famous Guinness ad, but perhaps their most important cameo appearance came when they featured in U2s 'Pride (In The Name Of Love)' video. However, Dublin City Council does not believe the Poolbeg chimneys are iconic enough to place on their Record of Protected Structures. Following a request from Cllr Dermot Lacey (Lab) to have the landmark ESB chimneys placed on the protected record, city councillors heard that city planners had conducted a survey, history and full assessment of the chimneys. They concluded from this that while the Poolbeg chimneys were considered to be of a certain level of architectural, social and historical significance, they were not of sufficient value within the meaning of the Planning and Development Act, 2000. Complex The twin red and white chimney stacks measure 680 feet in height and were construc...