Ben Dunne to sell former Dunsany Yeats painting

Businessman Ben Dunne is selling 39 paintings from his personal art collection, including John Lavery’s 'Sketch for Pro-Cathedral, Dublin 1922', the iconic painting of the funeral of Michael Collins, who was shot dead a century ago, and Jack B Yeats’s 'Singing My Dark Rosaleen, Croke Park, 1921' which was one of the works stolen in the Dunsany Castle art robbery and subsequently recovered.

Art thieves struck Dunsany Castle in 1990, when five works were stolen, along with some antiques from the Plunkett home. Two paintings by Jack Butler Yeats were taken – ‘Batchelors Walk in the Morning and ‘Singing the Dark Rosaleen’, as well as three by the 17th century Dutch artist, Anthony Van Dyck – ‘King Charles I’, ‘King’s Wife Queen Henrietta Maria’ and ‘Portrait of a Lady’. The haul was reported to be worth £1 million at the time.

The Dunsany paintings were recovered in the following years, with two of the Van Dycks discovered in greyhound kennels in England, following an international police operation.

‘Portrait of a Lady’ was recovered in downtown Montreal in Canada following a police sting led by Det Sgt Denis Bergeron in 1994. It had been used as a payment for a shipment of cocaine in Miami in 1993, in a deal that went sour.

The then justice minister, Nora Owen, accompanied Det Sgt Bergeron to Dunsany Castle to return the painting to the Plunketts in 1995.

The same year, the late art collector Sheila Plunkett, Lady Dunsany, sold ‘Singing the Dark Rosaleen – Croke Park’ at Sothebys for £500,000, when it was bought by Ben Dunne, and later gave the second Yeats painting on loan to the National Gallery when it was recovered. ‘Bachelor’s Walk - In Memory’, was acquired permanently from her family by the gallery last year.

'Singing ‘My Dark Rosaleen’, Croke Park', was painted during the Irish revolutionary period and commemorates the Bloody Sunday massacre at the Dublin GAA ground in November 1920 It was described by one art critic as “one of the masterpieces” of Yeats’s early style.

With the Dunnes downsizing, the Ben and Mary Dunne Collection, named after the businessman and his wife, could fetch up to €10m.

Dunne was the central figure who ushered in the era of tribunals in the 1990s and 2000s after a bitter family feud with his sister, Margaret Heffernan, led directly to the McCracken Tribunal and the subsequent disgrace of Charles Haughey, Michael Lowry and other significant political and business figures.

After being ousted from the family business, Dunnes Stores, he set up the Ben Dunne Gym chain, which includes a branch in Navan.

Dunne celebrated his new-found independence by buying Lavery’s Sketch for Pro-Cathedral, Dublin 1922, from Alan Hobart, a London dealer, for what was described at the time as “a hefty six-figure sum”. Hobart became art adviser to the Dunnes, and a couple of months later they bought Singing The Dark Rosaleen, Croke Park at Sotheby’s.

Both paintings have since hung in pride of place in the family’s Castleknock home, Winterwood.

An exhibition and sale featuring the Dunne Collection will be held at Gormley Fine Art in Dublin from 8th to 22nd September, before moving to Belfast for two weeks.