The illuminated Hannibal Lecter mask from the film Hannibal sold for a hammer price of €85,000 at Sheppards online sale of residual contents from Castlehyde House, Fermoy. From the collection of MIchael Flatley, who is planning a refurbishment of the Co. Cork home he bought in 2001, the mask is signed by actors Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore. It was at €80,000-€100,000 the most expensively estimated lot of the sale.
On his retirement the man known globally as The Lord of the Dance took up art as an outlet for his creative force. One of his works, an acrylic on vinyl entitled The Finishing Line, made €37,000 at hammer against an estimate of €40,000-€60,000. A Maitland Smith bar sold for €8,200, a pair of large gilt bronze figures of nymphs each holding a torch made €4,600 as did a championship sized snooker table. Other hammer prices included: a black marble and ormolu Medici lion clock (€2,800); a pair of hide upholstered library settees (€3,600); a portrait of James Joyce wearing a white suit (€4,000); an extensive hunting scene (€5,200); an 18th century walnut armoire (€1,450); a pair of carved parcel gilt settees (€1,700); a pair of bronzed sculptures of centaurs (€2,200); a hide upholstered chesterfield settee (€1,400); a set of ten 19th century dining chairs (€2,800); a rococo carved giltwood coffee table €2,600); a library terrestrial globe (€2,600); a full suit of armour made €3,400 one sold for €1,700 and another for €1,100; a pair of painted Gainsborough chairs sold for €1,800. The sale of nearly 700 surplus to requirements pieces mostly collected over the past 20 years will continue today when another 236 lots will come under the hammer online at Sheppards.
