PETERBOROUGH, N.H. – Yes, there was such a time. And William Newenham Montague Orpen (Irish, 1878-1931) captured it in his oil on canvas painting titled “After the Ball,” depicting masked and caped couples just outside a building. Fetching $72,000 with premium, a significant premium over its $20/30,000 estimate, the painting was sold at The Cobbs’ summer fine art and antiques auction on August 7. Signed lower left “Orpen,” the 53-by-41-inch canvas came in a good old molded gilt frame and bore exhibition labels attached to stretcher from the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, and the Royal Academy. An Irish artist who worked mainly in London, Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portraits for the well-to-do in Edwardian society. The European market is hot for this artist, said Charlie Cobb, and the painting went to an English bidder after much competition on the phones and Internet. “With such great exhibition history provenance, you can’t ask for anything more,” said Cobb. A full review of this sale will follow.