Sotheby's sale in London of British & Irish Art collects $7,468,147

KOLKATA: Sotheby's sale in London of British & Irish Art brought a total of £4,970,150 ($7,468,147) against a pre-sale estimate of £4,482,000-6,725,000 ($6,734,653-10,104,985). The top lot was Scottish colourist F.C.B. Cadell's Reflections, which sold for £686,500 ($1,031,535) and established an auction record for the artist.

Grant Ford, head of British & Irish Paintings, commented: ""We were very pleased with the sale, which brought a total of £4.97 million, comfortably within the pre-sale estimate, and established a sell-through rate by lot of over 70% -- the strongest in this field for two years - and a sell-through rate by value of 78%.

""We were delighted with the new world auction record for Scottish colourist F.C.B. Cadell, which is the highest price achieved for a Scottish painting at auction this year. The Irish market is showing signs of new growth, with particularly strong results for Roderic O'Conor, William Orpen, and a robust price for Basil Blackshaw, proving he is a major force in contemporary Irish art.""