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The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/17499755103806242011 5: 139Cultural Sociology

Marta HerreroMarkets for Irish Art

Selling National Value at the Auction Market: The London and Dublin

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Selling National Value atthe Auction Market: TheLondon and Dublin Marketsfor Irish Art

Marta HerreroUniversity of Plymouth, UK

AbstractThis article explores how nationality is articulated as a form of art value in the art market, where

art is defined in two related ways: instrumentally, in terms of its economic value, and culturally,

by defining its meaning and significance. Focusing on the auction market of Irish art in London

and in Dublin, and drawing upon interviews with auctioneers in both capitals, it investigates how

nationality is produced and marketed as a form of cultural value for Irish art, comparing the

specific dynamics of this process in both London and Dublin auction markets. Whilst the findings

in this article agree with existing literature on the economic and cultural forms of art valueprevalent in art markets, they add to the literature by arguing that the cultural, national element

of value-making for Irish art is very pronounced.

Keywordsart market, auction, culture, Irish art, nationality, value

Introduction

Before the recent financial crisis, the global art market was in very good health. In June

2006 the London art market broke its previous records when a total of 109.3m was

spent at Sothebys in its Impressionist and Modern art sales. That same week, its rival

Christies raised 87m in its Impressionist and Modern Works sales. The presence of

wealthy buyers from emerging markets, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Far East, in

addition to the traditional interest from Western European and American collectors, is

said to have contributed to these results.1 And yet, it is not surprising that record-break-

ing prices are paid at Sothebys and Christies auctions as these two companies operate

a duopoly of control over the art market (Moulin, 2000; Van den Bosch, 2005), with

Article

Corresponding author:

Marta Herrero, University of Plymouth, School of Applied Psychosocial Sciences, Drake Circus, Plymouth

PL4 8AA, UK.

Email: [email protected]

Cultural Sociology

5(1) 139153

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140 Cultural Sociology 5(1)

branches and representatives worldwide. Part of their strategies for control is finding the

most appropriate location for the sale of art, where it can fetch its highest price, with

London and New York sharing a leading position as hosts of the most prestigious auction

sales. This search also informs Sothebys and Christies theme sales: sales of art from a

specific country or geographical area, e.g. the Irish sales, the Italian sales, the Spanishsales, the Scandinavian sales, and so on, most of which take place in London. This article

focuses on Sothebys and Christies Irish sales in London as an example of the creation

of national sub-markets on foreign soil (Prescott Nuding, 1992: 231). It studies the

ways in which auctioneers represent the dynamics of the sales as well as the practices

generated from their points of view. The approach followed here starts from the premise

that in the art market, art is defined in two related ways: instrumentally, in terms of its

economic value; and culturally (Bourdieu, 1993; Moulin, 1987, 1994; Velthuis, 2005), in

this case, by defining its meaning as a national type of art, here Irish. In order to

explore nationality as a factor in art-related value-creation practices, this article alsoexplores the dynamics of Dublins auction market for Irish art.

An analysis of auction sales of Irish art is a timely subject of study in its own right, given

the rapid growth the auction market experienced from the 1980s, and particularly in the

1990s, up until the recent economic crash. The prosperous economy of pre-crash Ireland

the Celtic Tiger very much helped the development of the auction market, which in

the late 1990s and early 2000s was describable as the international market experiencing

the fastest growth worldwide (Britton, 2002: 2). Record prices for Irish art paid at Londons

and Dublins auctions testified to that expansion. In 2001, Sothebys broke a world record

for the most expensive Irish painting ever sold at auction, when William Orpens Portraitof Gardenia St George fetched 1.8m. Dublins market also saw its share of record-break-

ing sales at its major auction houses, Adams, de Veres, and Whytes. For example, in 2001,

In the Garden, Castlewood Avenue by Walter Frederick Osborne (18591903) sold for

825,330 in Adams, and in 2005, Jack Yeatss (18711957)A Blackbird Bathing in Tir na

nOgsold for820,000 at de Veres. The following year, Adams made a total of 3.98m in

one of its Irish art sales, becoming the highest grossing fine art sale to be held in Ireland.2

This article is divided into three parts. First, it discusses sociological perspectives on

the study of value in the context of art markets. Second, it provides a background for the

development of the auction market for Irish art in London and Dublin. Third, drawing ondata from open-ended interviews carried out with auctioneers in London and Dublin, it

analyses their interpretations of the sales, and the practices they carry out to represent the

value of Irish art in both cities. The article concludes by elaborating on how the representa-

tion of the national cultural value of Irish art occurs through the definitions of value and

the artistic preferences of buyers and vendors, as well as of the auction house staff.

Art Auction Markets: A Sociology of Art Value

The main question pursued here is how nationality is articulated as a form of art value

in the auction market. Sociological studies of art markets have investigated how the col-

lective practices of market actors, commercial galleries, dealers, auction houses, art fairs,

and so on, promote artists reputations and create value for artworks in, broadly speak-

ing, two related lines of enquiry (Herrero, 2007; Robertson, 2005):



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Herrero 141

1) investigations into the specific management strategies pursued by art market

actors in order to promote and sell the work of artists (Brystyn, 1978; Heath and

Luff, 2007; Moulin, 1987, 1994; Peterson, 1997; Velthuis, 2005); and

2) studies explaining the types of value given to art accruing from these practices

(Bourdieu, 1993, 2005; Moulin, 1987, 1994; Velthuis, 2005).

A main issue in the latter literature has been to understand how art is endowed with both

cultural value and economic value (Bourdieu, 1993; Greenfeld, 1989; Moulin, 1987;

Velthuis, 2005).

A clear example of an empirical study of economic-cultural processes of value is

Moulins (1987) research on French art dealers in the 1960s. She sets out to explore

those factors determining the prices of paintings. She differentiates between price as

one measure of value, and aesthetic or cultural value (Moulin, 1987: 44). Two

ideal-types of dealers, traditional and entrepreneurial, are seen to handle the workof established and new and upcoming painters respectively. The ways in which these

dealers attribute cultural value to art varies. In the case of established painters, the

cultural value of their work is determined by the judgement of history (1987: 44), as

art dealers valuations of the aesthetic worth of a given painting are based upon the

long-held, established opinions of a range of art critics and historians. By contrast, the

cultural value of contemporary works depends largely on the subjective judgement of

entrepreneurial dealers, because there are no established grounds to gauge the aesthetic

worth of this type of art. Thus the art market is governed by a subjective theory of

value (1987: 178), meaning that dealers claims on the cultural value of an artworkare always subjective, a reflection of their own personal tastes.

In his study of art dealers in New York and London, Velthuis (2005) argues, in a simi-

lar vein to Moulin, that prices are a measure of both economic and cultural value. Pricing

is not only an economic but also a signifying act (Velthuis, 2005: 158), and thus

embedded in cultural meanings. Of special relevance here is Velthuiss finding of how

dealers and auctioneers operate with different forms of pricing mechanisms, enacting a

form of symbolic struggle (Bourdieu, 1993). Dealers see themselves as the promoters

of cultural value in art, whereas they see auctioneers as parasites of the art market who

are only interested in arts economic value (Velthuis, 2005: 7796). They are aware ofthe meanings of prices, and are used to negotiating these meanings. For example, they are

opposed to price decreases, not only for their direct economic effect, but also for the

meaning they convey for example, suspicion about the quality of an artists work,

which can translate in a negative appraisal of this work by collectors. By contrast, in the

auction market, from the dealers point of view, the only measure of value is price, in its

strictly financial sense, as a reflection of supply and demand. Auction houses are not in

the business of promoting cultural value, by for example supporting an artists career by

placing his or her work with collectors with a genuine interest in art, but are rather simply

profit-oriented (Velthuis, 2005: 86).

Quemins (2006) work is especially relevant here because it sheds further light on the

dynamics of the cultural value of art in art markets. His study of the role of national

identity in the art world and the auction market offers an example of how nationality is

enacted and performed by art market actors in their choices to include or exclude the

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work of certain artists. He discovered a strong hierarchy of nations shaping the decision-

making processes of art world and art market actors. Consequently, it is mostly the work

of artists whose careers have taken place in leading countries in art world terms

such as the USA, the UK and Germany which finds its way into leading public art

collections, which is sold at prestigious auctions like Sothebys and Christies contempo-rary art sales, and is represented at international art fairs such as that held at Basel. The

importance of Quemins work in the present context lies in how it brings together insights

from the art market literature, which explore the practices involved in constructing arts

cultural value, and the study of national identity, as an example of a particular form of

value and value creation.

The Auction Market for Irish Art

The auction market for Irish art goes back to the 18th century, when auction sales wereadvertised in Dublins local press, including Irish pictures as well as others imported

from countries such as Italy, France, the Netherlands, England and Spain (Crookshank,

2002: 52).3 In 1811 and 1887, there are reports of London auction sales of paintings from

collections in Ireland at Christies and Phillips Son and Neale (2002: 63).4 In the 18th and

19th centuries, auction houses in Dublin appeared, some of which remain in business

today. Whytes was founded in 1781 as glass and china merchants, and in 1877 Adams

was established as general estate auctioneers (Eckett, 2004). It was customary for auc-

tion houses to sell all sorts of items, such as silver, furniture, books, paintings, and other

decorative arts. Although Adams still trades in an array of items, the majority of auctionhouses in Dublin today trade mostly in paintings. In the 1970s, the first auction sales

specializing in Irish art took place, and record prices for Irish artists were reached (Coyle,

2004).5

By the early 1980s, the auction market for Irish art in Ireland was well estab-

lished, especially in works of a representational nature, such as that of Paul Henry (1876

1958), who was known for his evocative paintings of the West of Ireland, or of

Belfast-born Frank McKelvey (18951974), who specialized in Northern Irish land-

scapes (Coyle, 2004: 72). A number of auction houses emerged in the 1980s, including

de Veres (in 1985) and Hamilton Osborne King (HOK) (in 1987).6 A key obstacle to the

development of the Irish auction market was the tax regime prevalent in the 1980s andwell into the 1990s. This meant that 25% value added tax (VAT) was charged to buyers

who wanted to repatriate Irish art bought in London, and to those who wanted to sell Irish

art in London. In 1991 this tax was reduced to 10%, but the heavy taxation was an

impediment in the development of Dublin as an international market for Irish art sales

(Prescott Nuding, 1991: 247). At present, no tax is charged to Irish buyers who want to

sell outside Ireland, although a 13.5% on VAT is applied to those buyers from outside the

EU who want to sell Irish art in the Republic of Ireland. The auction market for Irish art

is mainly based in Dublin, with Adams, de Veres and Whytes which started selling

Irish art in 2000 (Eckett, 2004) leading the market in terms of their overall revenue

(McAndrew, 2006).

Sothebys and Christies are the two main auction houses involved in the sale of Irish

art in London. Sothebys started selling Irish art in Ireland in the 1970s, establishing an

office in Dublin in the late 1970s, and also working with a number of representatives



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Herrero 143

locally. Between 1978 and 1981, it conducted auctions at Slane Castle7 of silver, antiqui-

ties, decorative art, and paintings, although the latter were only a minor attraction of

these sales (Eckett, 2004). From 1982, Sothebys continued to sell Irish items (silver,

furniture, paintings) in its London sales, and from 1993 it started to have sub-sections of

Irish art in its Modern British themed sales in London, which would also tour to Ireland.Irish pictures sourced in the USA would be sent to London for sale, with only occasional

sales of Irish pictures in New York (Potterton, 1992: 227). In 1995, Sothebys organized

the first Irish Sale in London, followed by Christies the following year.

Although Christies never opened an office in the Republic of Ireland, it benefited

from the help of local art expert Desmond Fitzgerald, as well as that of its own representa-

tives in Ireland. It conducted house sales in conjunction with Irish auctioneers such as

Hamilton and Hamilton (now HOK) (Eckett, 2004: 48). In 1989 and 1990, it organized

four sales of Irish art (two in Dublin, with works by artists who produced work of Irish

interest, and two in Belfast, with works by artists of Northern Irish interest or appeal).In 1991 these sales were reduced to two, whilst artists of British and international interest

started to be included in the London sales. This was an attempt to cut down on the

expenses of having two sales in two different locations in the face of strong competition

from Dublin auction houses, which were taking their own share of the market. From 1992

to 1996, when Christies organized its first Irish art sale, any examples of Irish art were

sold at Christies Modern British art sales in London (Prescott Nuding, 1993: 256).

Having mapped out the development of the auction market for Irish art, I now turn to

an analysis of Irish art sales. I focus on auctioneers points of view as to their sales-

related practices, as well as on the practices generated by their ways of thinking. The aimhere is to investigate how nationality is produced and marketed as a form of value for

Irish art, as well as to compare the specific dynamics of this process in both London and

Dublin auction markets.

The following data were obtained from a total of eight open-ended interviews with

auctioneers carried out in both Dublin and London between 2003 and 2006.8 The names

of interviewees are not revealed, only their institutional affiliation. Interviews with auc-

tioneers in charge of the Irish sales at Sothebys and Christies are referred to as (S) for

Sothebys and (C) for Christies, and differentiated by number, e.g. (C1), (C2). Interviews

with three auction houses, Adams, e.g. (A1), (A2), de Veres (DV1) and HOK (HOK1)are also included in the discussion of the Dublin market.9

London: The Right Market for Irish Art

Sothebys and Christies Irish sales take place annually in May on two consecutive days,

and each auction house takes turns in holding its sales first. Both sales offer an equally

broad range of paintings, from the 18th century to the 20th, including works by Irish-

born artists as well as by non-Irish artists who produced landscape views of Ireland. In

an article in The Irish Times a month before Christies first sale in 1996, its director

referred to the benefits London could offer to Irish buyers.10 The UK capital was

described as a financial haven that would relieve Irish buyers from having to pay the

taxes required by the Irish Revenue Commissioners if they were to trade in the Irish

market. The Commissioners were tracking all art sales over 15,000, and had made Irish



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collectors wary of buying or selling their paintings in Ireland. Having the sales in London

was thus an attempt to double up audiences, attracting the interest of both the London

trade and Irish buyers (C1).

All Sothebys and Christies auctioneers interviewed agreed on the fact that London

would make the Irish sale more international and less local than if it took place in Dublin.London, explains an interviewee at Christies, can attract the interest of a wide audience of

potential buyers, which can help increase the prices paid at auction. Similarly, high

prices are very tempting to vendors who prefer selling in Londons big market, where

they can get a higher price for their paintings (C2). The notion that London is the right

market for Irish art is also present in some press releases, which describe the sales as a

unique event,11 an opportunity to revolutionize the worlds perception of Irish artists and

craftsmen, placing them on a world stage.12 One auctioneer commented on how

Sothebys brand name has helped this auction house attract some good commissions, such

as the prestigious Smurfit collection.13

On reflection, she added, the vendors made a deci-sion to sell in London because they felt they were going to get the best prices for the

pictures; the brand name has more prestige, its an international company, the auction

houses in Ireland cant compete with us (S1).

The presumed revolution caused by the London sales is difficult to measure in

financial terms because a large number of buyers kept their identities anonymous,

which made it almost impossible to ascertain who paid for which paintings. Some evalu-

ations can still be made from the publication of the top 10 most expensive lots in each

sale. The largest number of art buyers are Irish (that is, of Irish nationality or based in

Ireland), followed by buyers from the UK and the USA.14

What is clear from the opin-ions expressed so far, even when some of the claims cannot be substantiated, is that the

value of Irish art is defined instrumentally, in terms of the high price it can achieve by

being sold in London, in comparison to it being sold in Dublin.

The Irish sales are described not only in terms of the financial profits they generated,

but also as an example of branding. This is seen by auctioneers as a way of increasing

the price of art, and of raising the profile of a particular group of paintings. A Christies

auctioneer refers to the Irish sales as a brand that helps create awareness of this type of

art. They were designed to lift Irish art out of a general context, in this case Christies

Modern British sales, and into a specific area, that is, into the category of Irish art(C1). Although the occasional sale of Irish paintings in London had attracted the atten-

tion of some Irish buyers, he explained that the Irish sales started as a response to an

increasing need on the behalf of some Irish vendors to sell Irish art separately from

British art. He noted that the correct identification of Irish art as Irish art would be a

key concern to him if he himself were Irish:

If you think about it, what is the relationship between Britain and Ireland historically? Its an

uncomfortable one, anyway. I am not Irish at all. I do not have a single Irish bone in my body.

Yet, if I were Irish I would feel slightly if I was selling my art that it should be identified as

Irish, and not lumped in with something called British art. I would find that difficult. (C1)

Here Christies Irish sale is represented as offering Irish vendors the possibility of remaining

loyal to their view that Irish art is intrinsically different from British art, and thus it

should only be sold in sales exclusively devoted to it.15 This auctioneer adds that the Irish



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Herrero 145

sales have proved successful in persuading some otherwise reluctant Irish vendors to sell

their paintings in London. The appellation Modern British, under which Irish art was

being sold, did not express appropriately the distinctiveness vendors felt it deserved:

There were people who were reluctant to consign major international pieces to a sale which wascalled British art, because it wasnt, it was Irish art, and also they were unwilling to consign

major pictures to the smaller sales held in Dublin or Belfast. (C1)

There is no evidence to support or refute the claim that vendors preferred to sell their

pictures in London where they were identified as Irish art. In any case, this factor can only

apply to a small number of sellers because, as various auctioneers have reported, Irish

people only own a small number of all the Irish works sold in London. The Irish art sold

in London comes from a variety of countries Canada, the USA, France and Germany

where Irish artists would have exhibited previously. It is also questionable that callingthe sales Irish and selling Irish art outside the context of British sales would actually

help vendors overcome a troublesome colonial past: this may not be a concern at all for

some vendors. Nonetheless, of particular importance here is the justification of the sales

on cultural grounds. Auctioneers accounts often tried to appeal to a shared sense of

national identity in sellers, to justify the practice of selling Irish art under the allegedly

correct national category, i.e. Irish and not British. Thus, Irish art becomes the reposi-

tory of cultural value, the embodiment of a national identity and patrimony, that helps

auctioneers present themselves as being able to give what is defined as Irish art the

correct national-cultural value it supposedly demands and deserves.

The publicity campaign surrounding the Irish sales is another set of practices that

contributes to creating and reproducing the cultural/national value of Irish art. Press

releases, made available on the internet, describe the most expensive lots in the sales,

details of the paintings provenance, and their importance within the artists overall oeu-

vre. These details are crucial in reassuring prospective buyers of the price value of the

artworks. The publication of auction catalogues fulfils a similar purpose. These are gen-

erally beautifully illustrated, with glossy pictures of all the artworks, annotated entries

for the most expensive lots written by experts mostly academics on Irish art. All the

auctioneers interviewed agreed in saying that catalogues are key tools to market the

Irish sales. Despite an increased use of the internet, where all the lots are reproduced,

this is not seen as a substitute for catalogues. The following comment by an auctioneer

elaborates on the significance of catalogues in the Irish sales:

[Collectors] love the catalogue entries and explanations and descriptions about the pictures, the

period, where the artists were. And theres something about it its something that most

people would keep in their bookshelves and refer to, and again it becomes all part of a

nationalistic pride. (S2)

For this auctioneer, catalogues are valuable because they represent a national her-itage, which creates a sense of pride in Irish buyers. However, no mention is made of

the fact that auction catalogues also display the financial value of the art, in this case the

reserve price given to a painting. Moreover, even though not all buyers at the Irish sales

are from Ireland, references to a shared national pride surface again when auctioneers



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explain the reasons why Irish buyers would travel to London to buy Irish art. This is

the main group of buyers at the Irish sales, and thus without their support it would be

difficult to see how the sales would be successful. Despite the earlier mention of the ano-

nymity of buying art in London, which was reported in the Irish press as an incentive to

some Irish buyers, all interviewees agreed in saying that the main reason why Irishpeople travel to the London sales is to have the opportunity not to be anonymous, but

rather to be part of a group and to socialize:

[The Irish] love coming over for the spectacle. The sale that we have every May is put into their

diary as soon as the sale is announced, and they will come over for a lot of shopping, good

fun, going out in the evening, but it is always considered a spectacle. (S2)

Both Sothebys and Christies auctions are held during what auctioneers refer to as the

Irish week. A Sothebys auctioneer put it like this: The atmosphere is fantastic withover three hundred to five hundred [people] in the sale Its Irish week so Irish people

enjoy the fact that they are going to London for the week (S1). A Christies auctioneer

was similarly enthusiastic: There is a buzz, [it] is like Cheltenham the race week and

people come over from the middle of the week and stay for two or three days and

theres parties. The buyers are a friendly crowd and would know each other from

Dublin (C2). The comparison between the Cheltenham horse race (begun in 1815 and

associated with an upper class audience) and the Irish sales is an attempt to associate the

latter event with some of the reputation, historical nature and prestige of the former.16

Similar references to the sales are made in the Irish press, where readers are told that theIrish sales in London provide potential buyers with an opportunity to socialize and enjoy

the cachet of being seen bidding in smart London salerooms (Coyle, 2004: 73).17 In

these examples, the value of Irish art lies in its ability to provide a means of enjoyment

for Irish buyers who turn buying art into a leisure activity. Irish art gains its cultural value

as an item of national pride and prestige, but also simultaneously as a means for social-

izing among fellow countrymen while abroad.

Another part of Sothebys and Christies publicity campaigns is the organization of

viewings. These exhibitions of paintings from the Irish sales last from two to five days,

are open to the public, and take place in London, Dublin and the USA (usually NewYork and Chicago). All Sothebys and Christies auctioneers interviewed agreed on the

benefits of the international exposure Irish art receives in America. However, this also

involves a financial risk, explains an interviewee at Christies, because there is no real

proof that Irish art can attract much interest from international buyers (C1). Therefore

the main incentive for targeting the American market has been the large number of Irish-

Americans who might be potential buyers. Only the highlights of the sale, the four to six

most expensive paintings, are sent due to the high costs involved in shipping and insur-

ing them.

In addition to viewings in America, Sothebys and Christies preview their sales in

Dublin and Belfast. Sothebys takes only a selection of works by each artist, chosen for

their appeal to Irish buyers. These are mainly Dublin views, the very Irish views (S1).

However, even when preferences for certain artistic subjects are mentioned, these view-

ings fulfil a commercial function: to satisfy vendors in Ireland who want to see their art



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Herrero 147

being brought to the attention of potential buyers in Dublin and Belfast (C1, C2, S1, S2).

This financial orientation is clear from Christies practice of using the viewings as an

opportunity to advertise other sales including highlights of its sporting art sale and

jewellery sales in which some Irish collectors have previously bought items. One auction-

eer (C1) also mentioned the possibility of bringing French Impressionist paintings toDublin, which would appeal to a number of Irish collectors known to be interested in

this type of art or in international art more generally, as a number of wealthy Irish collec-

tors have previously bought pieces by Braque and Picasso. Interestingly, the sale of sport-

ing art has so far been successful amongst Irish collectors, despite the fact that these

paintings are all by British artists.

Auctioneers accounts of viewings in America and in Dublin help us understand how

Irish art is defined both instrumentally based on its financial value and culturally in

terms of its value as a national product. An example of the latter emerges when auction-

eers argue that their reason for organizing viewings in America is the affinity they believeexists between Irish-American buyers and Irish art. The cultural value of Irish art here lies

in its ability to represent a supposed national type of art, and thus a product that can appeal

to the allegedly nationalistic taste in art of Irish-American buyers. However, the issue of

what auctioneers take Irish art to be is a contentious one. Whilst the assumption is made

that prospective Irish-American buyers have an affinity for Irish art, what prevails is a

definition of Irish art in terms of its financial value insofar as the examples sent to America

are selected on the basis of price. Thus it may be the case that the most apparently quintes-

sential views of Ireland, or typically Irish subjects such as images of the West of Ireland

and portraits of Irelands greatest politicians and writers, will not be included in the selec-tion if they are not examples of the most expensive paintings in a given sale. The accounts

offered by interviewees of viewings in Dublin offer a similar scenario, where instrumental

considerations hold sway. Even though mention was made by a Sothebys auctioneer of

choosing only examples of Irish landscapes for the Dublin viewings, the emphasis particu-

larly stressed by Christies staff was to use Dublin as a platform to advertise any type of

art, or indeed any sort of product generally (e.g. jewellery) in order to maximize financial

returns. As this auctioneer (C1) puts it, the viewings in Dublin are a multi-faceted event

to help increase sales: they are not just about the Irish sale. It is about Christies, really; it

is a major event held by Christies in a major European city, Dublin. I think we should beshowing a bit more [than Irish art alone], maximizing the opportunity.

Dublins Auction Market

I now turn to the value-making practices in Dublins auction market. The three auction

houses represented here are Adams, de Veres, and HOK. They all sell, almost exclu-

sively, Irish art including works by both living and non-living artists.18

These auction

houses target mainly local buyers and advertise in the Irish press, in organs such as the

Irish Arts Review, The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, andPhoenix Magazine. For

those international buyers interested in Irish art, all auction houses have websites, but

all their viewings, with the exception of Adams, take place in Dublin.

An initial comparison of the London and Dublin auction markets for Irish art can be

obtained from an examination of sales results in both capitals. At the time of this study



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(20036), Londons sales were performing better than their Dublin counterparts, as they

sold in just one week 46% of all the art sold in Dublin in one whole year. Sales results for

2005 showed that the three main Dublin auction houses sold art for a total of 21.6m

(McAndrew, 2006), and Sothebys and Christies sales totalled 9.9m. However, Dublin

fared better than London in the sale of works by living artists. In the same year, less than 20%of works sold in London were by living artists, whereas an auction house such as de Veres

in Dublin sold over 50% of such works in a given sale (Eckett, 2004: 49). Even though

Dublin auctioneers were aware of these trends, when they were asked about the impact of

the London sales on Dublins auction houses, most interviewees (e.g. DV1, HOK1) men-

tioned the positive effect they have had on Dublins market by generating publicity for Irish

art. However, another auctioneer was less optimistic about the effects of the London sales,

because they have increased competition: theres Sothebys and Christies, which chip

away at the top end (A1). Overall, the downside of the London sales is clear to all the

auctioneers interviewed. Sothebys and Christies are able to secure the most expensivepaintings, whilst Dublins auction houses cannot compete with these two big businesses,

and, especially, with the publicity they give to their sales in America (A1, DV1, HOK1).

The Dublin case indicated attributions of value based upon both instrumental and cul-

tural criteria. What varied was the manner in which claims to cultural value were sup-

ported. An example of how Irish art was defined in instrumental terms is provided by

Adams partnership with Bonhams, a London-based auction house occupying since

1997 a third place after Sothebys and Christies (McAndrew, 2006). In order to deal with

competition from the two leading auction houses, Adams opted to gain a foothold in the

London market. Thus when Bonhams suggested the possibility of setting up a partner-ship for some of their sales, Adams agreed to it. None of the other Dublin auction houses

had an association with a London-based auction house. Bonhams had been selling Irish

paintings in London for some time, but it did not have a specialized sale that would attract

what they felt were the right type of clients (A1). Irish art was included in its sales of

19th century paintings, 20th century art, watercolours and Old Masters. Adams agreed

to have a selection of paintings from its sales previewed at Bonhams in London, and

Bonhams started to sell its Irish paintings in the Adams sales in Dublin. This arrange-

ment took place twice a year, in May and December, to coincide with Irish art sales at

Adams, and with the Sothebys and Christies sales in May.The selection of paintings sent to London was based on price; only prime examples

by leading artists like William Orpen (18781931) or John Lavery (18561941) that

could appeal to the London trade were chosen.19 Lower price paintings were sold in

Dublin, because they were thought not to have the potential to be bought by an interna-

tional dealer, whilst they could be more easily sold in Dublin. An auctioneer at Adams

explained that this association is beneficial to his auction house because Bonhams has a

more global view of things than we do, because they have associated companies in

America, Australia, Vienna (A1). The organization of viewings in London is justified

here by a conceptualization of Irish art wholly in terms of its financial value. As we saw

earlier, this way of thinking is shared by London auctioneers: the British capital is seen

as the best location for the sale of Irish art. In gathering the attention of a large number

of potential buyers, selling in London was thought to help Irish art achieve significantly

higher prices than in Dublin.



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Herrero 149

But working alongside auctioneers arguments about the financial value of Irish art

was the equally held view that selling Irish art in Dublin is good practice for the cultural

benefits it offers. This view becomes clear in the reasons Dublin auctioneers gave for hav-

ing their sales in the Irish capital. Here they reconstructed what they perceived to be the

buyers point of view. All the auctioneers interviewed explained that they sell locallybecause buyers for Irish art overwhelmingly are resident in Ireland, where the preference

is in the main for Irish art. An auctioneer reported that some people even bought Irish

art in England, where auctioneers may call it an English picture. The buyers then sell the

pictures on in Ireland because there they know there is a genuine interest for it (HOK1).

This is connected to the reasons auctioneers gave as to why selling foreign art in Dublin

is not seen as a feasible option: this is not an international market; its very much paro-

chial. We are parochial still in our taste in general, interest in Ireland is in Irish art rather

than in international art (DV1). Conversely, Irish buyers are regarded as knowing all

about Irish art: They know the Jack Yeatses; the Orpens, the Osbornes and Laverys, andthey feel comfortable with that, and consequently they are the sorts of pictures they buy

(A1). British art is seen not to have the same cachet as Irish art, as the same auctioneer

added with reference to the work of Birmingham-born painter Walter Langley:

You wouldnt buy a Walter Langley because you think Who is Langley? If I have an Osborne

on the wall of my apartment or my drawing room and somebody comes to my house and

recognizes it theyll say Osborne, fantastic. If they see a Langley, Well, weve never heard of

Langley. But they are affected by the kudos of having a picture by a major Irish artist.

In these sorts of comments, auctioneers built up an argument about the advantage of

selling in Dublin on cultural grounds. More specifically, they constructed a definition

of Irish art as a cultural good. Irish buyers are seen to have a cultural affinity for their

own national art, which is explained, in turn, as a consequence of the social status

attached to, and which accrues with, the ownership of Irish art (cf. Bourdieu, 1984).

A further cultural benefit of selling Irish art in Dublins auction market involved the

advantages this offered to Irish vendors who liked dealing with what they regarded as an

Irish company that sells Irish art in Ireland. According to one auctioneer (A1), the

conundrum for those who want to sell their art is trying to decide what type of company

they want to deal with. In London a painting by a well-known Irish artist such as PaulHenry or Jack Yeats will be exposed to a bigger market, and thus there is always the pos-

sibility that it can get international exposure, which can then push up its price. However,

vendors also value the fact that their paintings will be sold in Ireland:

[They] like the fact that [Irish art is] being sold in Ireland, because a lot of Irish people like

dealing with an Irish company, as opposed to dealing with an English company. Thats a

traditional thing that goes back a long way and they like the idea of the picture maybe staying

in Ireland. (A1)

Here we see a particular representation of Irish vendors, one that does not portray them

as being simply profit-oriented, for if they were, they would want to sell their paintings in

London where profit margins are higher. These are vendors whose priority lay in finding

a Dublin auction house, because they believed that only a company in that city could



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provide them with the service they wanted. Selling art with a company that conducts its

sales in Ireland increases the possibility of Irish art staying in the country, because

Dublins sales are seen to attract mostly Irish buyers. But, most importantly, according

to auctioneers, what sellers like above all is the fact that a particular auction house is

Irish, and so is not English. The reference to a traditional thing that goes back a longway invokes a troubled shared past between the two countries, and from which some buy-

ers may have wanted to disengage by choosing not to deal with an English company.

This type of argument echoes some of the reasons raised earlier on by a Christies

auctioneer when he explained the benefits of selling Irish art in London, but in a dedi-

cated Irish sale, as opposed to a more general British art sale. The rationale, in both

cases, is similar. Auctioneers justify their practices, such as the labelling of their sales,

and the location of the sales on grounds that are not financial but cultural, and national-

cultural at that. They attempt to appeal to a shared national identity both in buyers (who

share a taste in Irish art), and in sellers, who choose to do business with an Irish, notEnglish, auction house, or who want to sell their art in what is taken as an Irish sale.

In both cases, the behaviour of buyers and sellers in the auction market is represented

by auctioneers as a dimension of their national identity. In the process, Irish art

becomes a repository of cultural value. It provides buyers, vendors, and auctioneers

especially those who present themselves as being Irish with a way of expressing their

allegedly distinctive Irishness.

Conclusion

This article has set out to depict the dynamics of national identity in art as an example of

value-making processes in which art market actors engage. We have examined the differ-

ent ways in which the nationality of Irish art was expressed as a form of cultural value,

both in its apparent home territory, and in the leading international art market of

London. A main finding here that agrees with the existing literature on art markets is that

in the auction market Irish art is attributed with two forms of value: instrumental, in

terms of its economic value; and cultural, in this case, by defining its meaning as

national art. The emphasis in this analysis has been on how auctioneers explain the

rationales for their sales, as well as on the practices generated from these rationales.In both Dublin and London, we find justifications from auctioneers expressed in

terms of the economic value of art. Particular auctioneers sell in particular markets

(either Dublin or London) because, they argue, these are the correct locations from a

financial point of view for the sale of Irish art. The construction of the purely economic

value of art drove activities like the organization of viewings, such as those by Christies

in Dublin, which are treated as business activities exclusively geared towards selling art

in the Irish sales and other sales too. Viewings in America are organized so as to include

a selection of the most expensive paintings to be sold in each auction. The practice of

Adams in Dublin, selling works in conjunction with Bonhams in London, and organ-

izing viewings in the latter city, also involved an instrumental, purely financial under-

standing of the value of artworks.

But in addition to these representations and practices, the analysis has illustrated

examples of attributions of cultural value to Irish art, specifically in terms of



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Herrero 151

constructing and representing its nationality. Nationality is a form of cultural value

which auctioneers express constantly in their ways of thinking and the practices moti-

vated by them. The formulation of nationality as a form of cultural value takes place

through the definition by auctioneers of the tastes and preferences of buyers and vendors.

In London, Irish vendors were represented as having nationalist beliefs, by wanting tosell their Irish art in dedicated Irish art sales, and not in the politically-culturally unac-

ceptable venue of British sales. Irish buyers, especially with reference to Londons

Irish week, were portrayed as sharing a taste for their national art. The nationalistic

pride of Irish buyers in their own national art was emphasized again and again. Irish-

American buyers were represented as having a strong preference for authentically

Irish art, and this was given as the rationale for taking the trouble to send certain exam-

ples of Irish art to the USA to be exhibited before auction. Auctioneers in Dublin con-

nected the allegedly strong dispositions of Irish buyers towards Irish art, relating this

to issues such as the desire on the behalf of Irish buyers to achieve social status withintheir own country (this status being gained through being seen to be in possession of

genuinely Irish art), and also patriotic orientations to sell Irish art only in Ireland, as

that way it was more likely to be valued appropriately and to be bought by local buyers

who would keep the artworks in the country.

By defining buyers, vendors and artworks in these sorts of ways, auctioneers define

the role both of themselves and their auction houses. By alluding to the locations where

they sell and preview Irish art, and even the labels they give to their sales, auctioneers

represent themselves as the mediators of what they construct as the national taste for

art shared by buyers and vendors alike. As a result, a constructed entity defined as Irishart becomes the repository of national cultural value, at the same time as the artworks

in question are said to express unequivocally that national culture. The comparison car-

ried out here between the London and Dublin art markets has helped illustrate how,

despite the different arguments being raised to support the cultural/national value of Irish

art, both markets operate in similar ways. However, the data presented here reflect the

points of view of auctioneers in their role as sellers and marketers of Irish art. Thus the

issue is not to take these representations as the truth of how this art market operates,

or the only possible way of thinking about the artistic preferences of buyers and ven-

dors, in this case, those represented as Irish. What is nonetheless significant is thatauctioneers in both Dublin and London chose to present alongside a view of Irish art

in terms of its purely economic value, an image of nationality as a form of cultural value

underpinning contemporary art market practices. Clearly the national element of value-

making in the art market is very pronounced in this case. Further research will have to

be carried out to ascertain whether nation and nationality are as crucial in other art-world

contexts and settings.

Notes

1.

The Independent, British Art Market Breaks All Records amid Bidding Frenzy, 22 June2006.

2. Press release (2006) by Adams: Adams smashes auction records with 5.9 million Irish sale

total.

3. The first picture auction reported in Dublin dates back to 1707 (Crookshank, 2002: 52).



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4. Currently known as Phillips de Pury & Company, this auction house changed from Phillips & Son

to Phillips Son & Neale when its owner William Phillips brought his son-in-law Frederick Neale

into the business in 1882. See http://www.phillipsdepury.com (consulted 14 February 2010).

5. For example, a painting by Jack B. Yeats,A Palace, fetched IE15,000, an unheard of price

for a work by an Irish artist (Coyle, 2004: 72).6. De Veres auction house has had its offices in Dublins city centre since 1988, and it special-

izes in the sale of 19th and 20th century Irish paintings. HOK is a property consultantcy, now

known as Savills. Its fine art division started in 1987 and it closed in 2006, when its auctioneer

left to work at de Veres.

7. Slane Castle is located in the village of Slane, in Co. Meath.

8. This research was funded by small research grants from the Irish Research Council for the

Humanities and Social Sciences (2003) and the British Academy (2006).

9. Data from Whytes, the other major auction house in Dublin together with Adams and de

Veres, are missing in this analysis because an invitation to contribute to this research was declined.

10.

TheIrish Times, London Sale of Irish Art Dublins Loss, 6 April 1996.11. Press release (2003), Sothebys: Important Irish Paintings from the Jefferson Smurfit Group

to be Sold at Sothebys.

12. Press release (2000), Sothebys: The Irish Sale at Sothebys in London.

13. Businessman Dr Michael Smurfit, who became a millionaire in the 1980s, is one of Irelands

leading art collectors. Smurfit collected around 500 artworks, described as the worlds great-

est corporate collection of Irish art, on behalf of his company Jefferson Smurfit. After the

companys takeover in 2003 by Madison Dearborn, the collection came to the market, and

the Sothebys sale was part of this process (The Telegraph, Smurfit Irish Art Sale Draws

in 1.8m, 7 February 2003).

14.

The top 10 include a number of anonymous and private buyers, which I have been unable toclassify. The resulting breakdown is as follows: 33.48% Irish, 25.65% UK, 6.09% American,

0.43% European, and 34.35% unknown.

15. The need to highlight the identity of Irish art as separable from British art is not a new

proposition; it goes back to the creation of Dublins first gallery and modern art collection by

Hugh Lane in 1908 (see Herrero, 2007).

16. The Cheltenham Festival is the most prestigious event in the racing calendar in the UK, with

many of the best British- and Irish-trained horses racing against each other.

17. Eckett (2004: 51) refers to the Irish week in London as the London season, which once

referred to that month when the debutante daughters of society families travelled to London

to acquire suitable husbands.18. An exception is Adams contemporary art sale, which takes place four times a year, and it

includes works by Irish and non-Irish artists. Also de Veres sales have included works by French

and Spanish artists, although these are in a minority.

19. The work of both painters may appeal to London buyers for their connection with England.

John Lavery lived and worked in London from 1890 onwards, and was elected a full member

of the Royal Academy in 1921. William Orpen studied and worked in London, and became a

war painter during World War I. He was an associate member of the Royal Academy (Snoddy,

2002). Work by both artists has sold in London auctions for over a million pounds.

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Marta Herrero is a lecturer in the sociology of culture at the University of Plymouth. She is

the co-editor with David Inglis ofArt and Aesthetics: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences

(4 vols.) (2008, Routledge), and the author ofIrish Intellectuals and Aesthetics: The Making of a

Modern Art Collection (2007, Irish Academic Press) as well as of numerous articles on cultural

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Sociological Associations research committee RC37 for the Sociology of Art.

Documents

Cultural Sociology 2011 Herrero 139 53