February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — The first artwork by Prince Charles to be auctioned anywhere stole the show in Dublin when a lithograph fetched £53,000 for the victims of the Omagh bombing.
The reproduction of a 1995 watercolor of the north aspect of Windsor Castle had only been expected to fetch about £10,000 last week, but the price soared above works by Louis le Brocquy and Jack B. Yeats.
The purchaser was Agnes McCourt, the founder and managing director of the Unislim company in Northern Ireland.
She said that the staff often went to Omagh and it could have been one of them who died in the blast on Aug. 15 when 29 people were killed and 370 wounded.
The lithograph had been donated by Prince Charles — who visited Omagh after the massacre — following an approach by the organizers to the British embassy in Dublin.
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The bidding opened at £2,000 and shot up to its selling price in minutes.
Almost 250 works of art were sold at the auction and they brought in almost £160,000.
It will be donated mainly to the Omagh Hospital physiotherapy department, which will be involved in helping victims recover from their injuries.