antiquesandartireland.com

A memory of W.B. Yeats walking in Dublin by Patrick Collins, dated 1969, was the top lot at de Veres. It made 29,000.

ANYBODY buying Irish art right now is getting very good value for money according to John de Vere White.  de Vere’s art auctions brought in around 480,000 with their 220 lot Irish art sale on September 28.  Just under 60 per cent of works on offer sold by lot, over 90 per cent sold by value. This means that all the most expensively estimated works found buyers.

The top lot was a Patrick Collins oil from 1969, A memory of W.B. Yeats walking in Dublin, which made a hammer price of 29,000.  A portrait by Dan O’Neill entitled Louise made 18,000 and a work by Donald Teskey made 6,000.  All these paintings would have sold for far more money than this two years ago.  Kestrel by Edward McGuire sold for 17,500 and Michael Cullen’s Mother and Child Sleeping made 8,700. A bronze by F.E. McWilliam, Standing Couple, made 10,200 as did Markey Robinson’s Amsterdam.

In a Cork art sale that brought in 275,000 including fees, where 64 per cent of lots on offer found buyers, the top works failed to sell.  Nonethless auctioneer Morgan O’Driscoll was happy with the results of his Irish Art sale in Cork on September 27.  The market took the view that the top lots, two horse paintings by Peter Curling, were over estimated at 50,000-60,000 each. (See antiquesandartireland.com post for September 19). Around 30,000 would have been more realistic in the current climate.  In the event each one was bid up to 24,000 before being withdrawn.

This work by Liam Belton RHA (b.1947) 'Chimu Vessel with Seven Eggs' made 9,600 at the Morgan O'Driscoll art sale in Cork on September 27.

Picasso’s La Minotauromachie made a world record for a print sold at auction. (click on image to enlarge)

A new record  for any single print sold at auction was achieved at Sotheby’s in London on September 16.  Pablo Picasso’s La Minotauromachie made £1,273,250, eclipsing the pre-sale high estimate of £600,000. The previous record for any single print ever sold at auction was 14,200,000 NOK (Norwegian Kroner) / £1,271,370 for Vampire II by Edvard Munch, sold in Oslo in 2007

In London on September 22 Christie’s  will offer a pair of rare 19^th century photo albums by Esteban Gonnet entitled Recuerdos de Buenos-Ayres, discovered in an Oxfam shop in Newcastle upon Tyne. The albums, an early account of Argentine landscapes in the 19^th century, are being offered by Oxfam with an estimate of £3,000-5,000.