James, 20th Earl of Kildare and his wife Emily Mary in the grounds of Carton, by Arthur Devis – £185,000 at Bonhams.
An early Anglo-Dutch portrait of the swashbuckling English sea captain Sir Francis Drake topped Bonhams’ Old Master paintings sale on July 4 in New Bond Street. It sold for £290,000, just below its juicy £300,000-500,000 guide.
The portrait shows Drake wearing enormously expensive blackened and gilded half-armour.