A painting by Belfast-born artist Gerard Dillon sold for a record €1.375 million at auction in Dublin on Wednesday night.

Tea Party, an oil on board depicting six people at a table in a cottage in Roundstone, Co Galway, exceeded its €100,000 to €200,000 estimate after bidding from the room, by phone and online.

The 34 by 39-inch work was first shown at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in Dublin in 1955. It later entered the collection of Reeta and Frank Hughes from Warrenpoint after the Arts Council of Northern Ireland sold works by the artist.

James O’Halloran, managing director of Adam’s auction house, said the price achieved was “amazingly fantastic”.

Dillon left school at 14 and worked as a painter and decorator before moving to London in 1934. He began painting full time in the late 1930s and held his first solo exhibition in Dublin in 1942.

The artist represented Ireland at the Guggenheim International Show in New York in 1958 and Britain at the Pittsburgh International Exhibition the same year. A major retrospective of his work was held by the Ulster Museum in 1972.

Another Dillon painting, The Dreamer, sold for £378,000 at Sotheby’s in London in 2020.