BREAKING - Sheppards Auction Durrow goes ahead tomorrow!

Legendary Kilkenny art collector Tim O’Mahony is selling his incredible collection at Sheppard’s of Durrow on Tuesday, March 24.

Now in his nineties and retired, O’Mahony’s entire collection has been removed to Sheppard’s. In-person attendance at The O’Mahony Collection preview and auction has been suspended but you may participate remotely online and mobile browsing and remote bidding by telephone, online, or proxy bid.

Telephone, Email or Skype - Sheppards team is in place (9am - 9pm) to advise clients with questions about Lot(s) on offer, to provide condition reports, and to arrange for remote viewing and/or bidding. 

Tim O'Mahony
“Now that I’m in my 90s it’s hard for me to remember a time when I was not interested in antiques,” Mr O’Mahony recalled.
“Back when I was in my 30s, still living in the home place of Ballinagrane, just outside Borris, my earliest recollection is buying a magnificent set of cast iron gates, piers and six 20” granite orbs to cap them.
“Since then most of my purchases have been smaller in scale, which is just as well as I have always bought for pleasure and many of the artefacts have remained with me until now.
“An early purchase was instigated by my late brother, Fr Willie O’Mahony, who asked me to bid on a clock for him at auction,” he continued. “I was approached by someone at the auction who knew my brother.
“He had bid hastily on two paintings and was anxious to resell them. They were a pair of Irish scenes by one of the Kennard family painted around 1850. It was a quick decision, with no time to look up the artist or check prices.
“You depend a lot on your eye, if your eye does not spot the quality in something, there is no point in looking it up.
“That day I made a number of purchases, most of them have been sold on but the paintings have been hung in every home that my wife Helen and I have lived in.
Superb Quality
“What I like about Chinese and Japanese artefacts is the superb quality,” he said. “ You do have to be a bit of a detective, a challenge that I enjoy.
“With Chinese work especially, you see techniques used in the 15th and 16th Centuries still being used in the 19th Century. Even the marks can be the same so you have to look for other clues.
“Right now for instance, I have a small spinach-green jade talisman in my pocket. It’s very nicely done, little things like that you can get the same thing today.
“But when you hold it in your hand you feel the weight that speaks of quality; you run your eye and hand over it and there are no scratches or anything but the depth of the carving you can see and feel. Experience and handling is everything in antiques – you cannot beat handling.
“Sometimes, despite my best detective work, artefacts can appear to be quite unique. I know this is changing now with the vast resources of the internet for people to use for research but that’s not my generation I suppose.

“I have collected many pieces over the years that have not been clearly identifiable but I have seen in them an intrinsic value, a quality and a beauty.
Italian glass
“ I have collected examples of nice Italian painted glass from around 1850, some of it signed some of it not. An early 19th Century glass ewer and stand - I never saw anything like it in any book or anywhere, European I would say, but the quality is fantastic. I’d always go for quality, if you haven’t quality you don’t have anything.
“Building this collection has been a tremendous interest and given me very great pleasure in acquiring nice things,” he said, “especially when they have been at a good price!
“My wife Helen has been with me on this journey. She has always been delighted when I have brought home something nice and appreciated the quality of things.
“A great many of the pieces have been with me for a very long time now, and I have enjoyed them for many decades. It is my hope that they will now go on to find new homes as part of other collections to be appreciated and enjoyed for many years to come.”