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  • Archive for January, 2018

    GIACOMETTI CHANDELIER UNITES MOST CELEBRATED FIGURES

    Monday, January 29th, 2018

    Alberto Giacometti – Lustre avec femme, homme et oiseau  UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £7.6 MILLION

    A dramatic chandelier by Alberto Giacometti comes up at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale on February 28.  Estimated at £6-8 million Lustre avec femme, homme et oiseau  brings together the artist’s most celebrated figures, Walking Man and Standing Woman.  It is one of only three casts by Giacometti for select patrons  and a unique instance where all of the key motifs of the artist’s career appear in a single work.

    The chandelier encapsulates the existential anxiety of the post-war period whilst casting magical shadows that animate Giacometti’s heightened reality. It is coming to auction for the first time.

    Thomas Bompard of Sotheby’s said:  “This beautiful chandelier by Alberto Giacometti is the tangible coming together of visual arts, decoration and theatre. Despite a natural tendency for introversion, Giacometti became a figurehead of existentialism – finding his place at the centre of the avant-garde scene of artists and intellectuals in Paris. He was sought after by patrons, dealers and fellow artists, collaborating with the likes of modernist playwright Samuel Beckett to capture the fragile but powerful beauty of what hadn’t been destroyed by the Second World War. This is much more than a chandelier: it is a beacon of universal symbolism, of hope and humanism.”

    FRITZ HANSEN CHAIRS AT DE VERES

    Monday, January 29th, 2018
    This pair of Danish easy chairs by Fritz Hansen will feature at de Veres timed online design auction which runs until the evening of January 30.  Scandinavian design is hot right now and there are 89 lots of design furniture and art in this online sale.
    Fritz Hansens collaboration with Arne Jacobsen resulted in some classic icons of Danish design such as the Ant, Grand Prix, Series 7, the Swan and the Egg all from the 1950’s.  Founded in 1872 when the carpenter Fritz Hansen set up his own furniture company the design concern is still in operation and adding new designs today. All lots in the sale are on view at de Veres in Dublin.
    UPDATE: THESE WERE UNSOLD

    SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE AT SHEPPARDS ATTIC SALE

    Saturday, January 27th, 2018
    There is something about the idea of an attic sale that appeals to all collectors.  You never know what you might happen across. The Attic 2 auction at Sheppards in Durrow on January 30 has thrown up surprises that range from a croquet set to a 19th century metal bound pine butter churn estimated at just 100-150.
    The sale of over 700 lots, ideal for bargain hunters and those in search of something unusual, features decorative art, collectibles, paintings, prints, furniture, carpets and rugs from the attics, stables and storerooms of various clients of Sheppards.
    Persian, Afghan and Turkish rugs are modestly estimated at 200-300.  A set of Aesthetic Revival  metamorphic library steps is estimated at just 300-500 and a set of six Regency mahogany and boxwood inlaid Cork dining chairs has an estimate of 500-800.

    There are opera glasses, examples of Oriental and European porcelain, clocks, engravings, window seats, candlesticks, 18th century pairs of chairs, a Georgian brass preserving pan, games tables, a cased 19th century diorama, a Dutch blue and white musical jug and a large selection of furniture including a Regency parcel gilt  dwarf open bookcase and a Regency low bookcase.

    An Aesthetic Revival set of metamorphic library steps.  UPDATE: THESE MADE 460 AT HAMMER

    A set of six Regency mahogany and boxwood inlaid Cork dining chairs.  UPDATE: THESE MADE 540 AT HAMMER

    A Jacques of London croquet set.  UPDATE: THIS MADE 110 AT HAMMER

    19th century pine butter churn.  UPDATE: THIS MADE 80 AT HAMMER

    ONLINE SALE OF AFFORDABLE IRISH ART

    Thursday, January 25th, 2018

    An affordable online sale of Irish art by Morgan O’Driscoll runs to Monday January 29.  The catalogue is online. Here is a small selection:

    Man of Destiny – John Kingerlee (1,000-1,500)  UPDATE: THIS MADE 750 AT HAMMER

    O’Connell St. Dublin – Norman Teeling (600-900)  UPDATE: THIS MADE 750 AT HAMMER

    Michael Gemmell – Cleggan Harbour (600-800)  UPDATE: THIS MADE 600 AT HAMMER

    Paul Henry – Connemara Cottages (print) 300-400  UPDATE: THIS MADE 360 AT HAMMER

    EARLY IRISH POSTERS AVAILABLE ONLINE

    Thursday, January 25th, 2018

    The National Museum of Ireland – Country Life has made a collection of early travel and tourism posters, used to promote Ireland in the infancy of the tourism sector, available to view online for the first time.

    The posters form part of the National Folklife Collection and were previously on display at the museum in the exhibition Come Back to Erin: Irish Travel Posters of the 20th Century, which was curated by the late Dr Séamas Mac Philib.

    A number feature images that have become almost iconic representations of a romantic Ireland which marketers were keen to promote throughout the 1900s. The Museum collected the posters to help inform the story of Irish folk culture from 1850 to 1950, which is represented in the Country Life branch in Castlebar, Co. Mayo.

    A TIMED ONLINE DESIGN SALE AT DE VERES

    Sunday, January 21st, 2018

    There is a timed online design and art sale by de Veres of Dublin until January 30.  This is an auction of just 89 lots. The catalogue is online. Here is a small selection:

    A MAHOGANY SIDEBOARD, 1960s, BY WILLIAM WATTING FOR FRISTHO FRANEKER  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    A PAIR OF ‘ORANGE SLICE’ CHAIRS, BY PIERRE PAULIN FOR ARTIFORT  UPDATE: THESE MADE 1,200 AT HAMMER

    A MIRRORED SQUARE COFFEE TABLE, FRENCH 1970’S  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    Mike Fitzharris, b.1952 THE PORT AT RINGSEND  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    AN ONLINE AUCTION OF IRISH ART

    Friday, January 19th, 2018

    Morgan O’Driscoll’s first online art auction of 2018 runs to January 22.  There is work by Rowan Gillespie, Frank McKelvey, Dan O’Neill, Mark  O’Neill, Tony O’Malley, Norah McGuinness and many more.  The catalogue is online. Here is a small selection:

    Patrick Collins RHA (1911-1994)
    Eyrie (1988)  UPDATE:  THIS MADE 2,800 AT HAMMER

    Harry Kernoff RHA (1900-1974)
    Bottle Tower, Rathfarnham (1940)  UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,200 AT HAMMER

    Tony O’Malley HRHA (1913-2003)
    Abstract Composition (1979)  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    Felim Egan (b.1952)
    Untitled (2006)  UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,000

    THE WINTER ANTIQUES SHOW IN NEW YORK

    Friday, January 19th, 2018

    Now in its 64th year the Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armoury in Manhattan until January 28 is billed as the leading art, antiques and design fair in America.  The works on display range from antiquity to the present day. No less than 70 of the worlds top dealers in fine and decorative arts are taking part.  Here is a small selection of what is on show:

    A Chinese screen at Apter Fredericks

    Teotihuacan, Ceremonial Mask at Throckmorton Fine Art

    Roger Capron Lampe Oiseau, Vallauris, France c1950 at Lebreton

    A pair of window benches from Mount Welcome, Baltimore County, Maryland at Kelly Kinzie

    A pair of zinc hounds at Barbara Israel garden antiques

    ROCKEFELLER COLLECTION ON TOUR

    Tuesday, January 16th, 2018

    A George II gold Irish freedom box is among the highlights of the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller which Christie’s is touring prior to sales at Christie’s Rockefeller Center in New York in late spring. The freedom box, to the far right of the composite image above,  is by William Currie, Dublin and estimated at $30,000-50,000.  Christie’s has confirmed additional dates and locations for preview exhibitions of the collection to its flagship galleries in London (February 21 – March 8), Beijing (April 6 – 7), Los Angeles (April 6 – 12), and Shanghai (April 10 – 11). With each stop on the pre-sale tour, additional works of art and objects will be unveiled, revealing new facets of this storied, multi-category collection. The exhibitions, which are open to the public, are sponsored in partnership with private aviation company VistaJet.

    As a guide for collectors, Christie’s has launched a special issue of Christie’s Magazine dedicated to the Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller. The issue re-acquaints readers with the Rockefeller family’s unique place in American history, and their long legacy in the realms of art collecting, commerce, and philanthropy. All of the estate proceeds from the sale of the Collection will benefit established charities.

    A PICASSO PORTRAIT OF MARIE-THERESE AT SOTHEBY’S

    Sunday, January 14th, 2018

    Pablo Picasso
    Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée (Marie-Thérèse Walter)

    A 1937 portrait of Picasso’s powerful muse Marie-Therese is to be the highlight of Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art evening sale in London on February 28.  Picasso’s Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée (Marie-Thérèse Walter) brings to a climax a turbulent and highly charged year. Guernica was created in 1937, and in the final month of that year he painted this intense image of his golden muse Marie-Thérèse Walter.

    The painting Picasso’s evolving relationship with his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, to whom he was ostensibly still devoted at the time, and the increasingly dominant presence of his new lover Dora Maar. Indeed, the work appears to have been used as a means for exploring his feelings for the two women. There is a conscious blurring of the two styles inspired by the two muses, reaching its pinnacle in the silhouetted ‘other’ that emerges from behind the main subject. Whether it represents Maar or indeed a self-portrait, the implication is that of duality and conflict. Picasso is quoted: ‘It must be painful for a girl to see in a painting that she is on the way out’.

    UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £49.8 MILLION, THE SECOND HIGHEST PRICE FOR ANY WORK OF ART EVER SOLD IN EUROPE.