Sotheby’s held its most valuable Irish art sale in London since reviving the category three years ago. Like the renewed international interest in Modern British art, there seems to be a growing interest in Irish painters. The sale came in toward the high end of the pre-sale range of £2-3m. Its total was helped along by the collection of Joseph and Brenda Calihan which amounted to a little more than half of the overall figure at $1.8m.

If you can believe it, a Asian art dealer is the one who bought a portrait of George Bernard Shaw painted by Sir John Lavery in 1929. The top lots belonged to Jack Butler Yeats and John Luke (above.)