 |
 |
Afterimage is the title of this acrylic on board by Bridget Flannery. It comes up as lot 6 at the James Adam timed online art auction which runs to March 3 with an estimate of 1,000-1,500. The online catalogue lists 193 lots and bidding will begin to close at 2 p.m. on March 3. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 700
Anyone for a prototype of Bono’s Gretsch Irish Falcon model 6136 electric guitar? The Gretsch family, one of the most celebrated names in the music industry, is opening up their archive for the first time to benefit their music foundation. On offer live and online at Juliens Auctions, Beverly Hills, on March 26 and 27, is part of their collection of guitars. These were used as early generation prototypes of signature instruments by music legends like Bono, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Chet Atkins, Brian Setzer and many more. Gretsch has been the premier manufacturers of the worlds finest guitars and drums since 1883. Among the highlights of the sale is Bono’s prototype, which comes complete with green finish, two pickups with The Goal is Soul on the pickguard and gold hardware. The estimate is $8,000-$10,000.
No matter what your area of interest happens to be there is much in Fonsie Mealy’s Collectors’ Sale online from Castlecomer on March 3 to keep you occupied during this long lockdown. Literature, local and national history, sport and cinema all feature. These sales always throw up lots that offer insights into the day to day working lives of people like Michael Collins or the late Victorian and Edwardian Corkonians who mounted what seems to me to be the best show this city ever produced, the Cork Exhibition of 1901-02. A typed letter from the Aire Airgead (Minister for Finance) of 1920 is in fact a typically businesslike response from Michael Collins to a request from Skibbereen. Peadar Ó hAnnracháin (1873-1965), Gaelic League organiser, poet and Volunteer, had sought assistance for local fishermen. Collins, as minister, promised action but advised that the first thing to be done was to set up a co-operative society “as we deal only with Societies and not with individuals”. The letter, lot 407 in a sale of 673 lots, is estimated at 400-600.A letter of June 2, 1920 from Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, to the Superintendent, Great Southern and Western Railway, supports a request from Messrs. Henry Ford of Cork for two sleeping carriages to be attached to the mail train between Cork and Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire). The letter, estimated at €450-€650, is on black bordered official notepaper following the assassination of Lord Mayor Tomas MacCurtain. By any standards the Cork Exhibition was a magnificent event. Insight into the largely forgotten organisers might be found in lot 378, a 1911 book entitled Cork and County in the 20th century, Contemporary Biographies by Rev. R.J. Hodges edited by W. T. Pike, estimated at €200-€300.Lot 315 is a Maharajah’s photo album gift to engineer Vincent Hart. It is inscribed; “To V. Hart Esq., Superintending Engineer, Madras. With the best compliments of Ramchandra, Maharajah of Jeypore”. He was responsible for building the Mettur Dam on the River Cauvery, at that time the biggest solid gravity dam in the world. He retired to Cork and died at his house at Lotabeg on the Lower Glanmire Road in 1939. The album is estimated at 1,000-€1,500. A selection of sporting memorabilia includes lot 616, the match programme for the 1945 All Ireland Football Final between Cork and Cavan (Cork won by 2-5 to 0-7) and some Munster Championship official programmes. Among the cinema memorabilia are posters for The Field, Ryan’s Daughter and Michael Collins.
A cased pair of Japanese porcelain tea bowls decorated with foliage and the gilt mythological bird known as Fenghuang presented to Princess Michiko at a tennis tournament come up at Hegarty’s online only auction of antique furniture, art, jewellery and collectibles in Bandon on February 28. The lot includes a black and white photograph of the princess inscribed with the year 1961. Four years earlier Michiko Shoda played a game of mixed doubles against then Crown Prince Akihito. It was and it wasn’t a love match. The Crown Prince lost the match and his heart. Michiko won the prince and the game. Their wedding marked the first time in the 2,600+ years of the Yamato dynasty that someone born neither a princess nor an aristocrat married into the Imperial household. The bowls are estimated at €400-€600. If that story has struck some sort of romantic chord then how about a vintage square cut yellow sapphire and diamond ring. Hegarty’s has just the one, estimated at €5,000-€7,000. Among other lots of note is a pair of matching 19th century inlaid cutlery urns (€8,000-€10,000) and a watercolour by Douglas Alexander titled Among the Crohyboyle Mountains (€2,000-€4,000). There is an Art Deco peridot and diamond ring (€5,000-€9,000), an Italian Art Deco silver ice bucket (€3,500-€7,000) and an Edwardian Sheraton Revival sideboard (€1,000-€2,000). The sale offers one of the first three printings of the trade editions of The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (€800-€1,500). The March 1903 version includes all 30 illustrations, mostly by Quentin Blake, reduced to 27 thereafter.
The most significant collection to come to auction for years comes up at various sales at Sotheby’s in New York next May. At the heart of Anne Marion’s collection are masterworks by three of the greatest American artists of the post-War period: Andy Warhol’s iconic Elvis 2 Times, Richard Diebenkorn’s sublime Ocean Park No. 40; and Clyfford Still’s staggering PH-125 (1948-No. 1). All three works are estimated to achieve in excess of $20 million.
Legendary Texan rancher and businesswoman Anne Marion (1938-2020) was celebrated for her generous support of cultural institutions, critical contributions to education and healthcare, and her passion for the life and traditions of the American Southwest where her family had been rooted for generations. The treasures of her own private collection have remained – until now – largely unknown. It is estimated in the region of $150 million.
The great-granddaughter of Captain Samuel Burk Burnett (1849-1922) she was heiress to the historic, world-renowned Four Sixes Ranch in King County, Texas. Samuel took the unusual step of willing the bulk of his estate to his 22-year-old granddaughter, ‘Big Anne’, to be held in trust for her unborn child (the future ‘Little Anne’ Marion), thereby launching the tradition of female leadership of one of Texas’ greatest family businesses. Following her mother’s death in 1980, ‘Little Anne’ took over management of the business and ran it for the next forty years. She was a trusted board director and benefactor of the Kimbell Art Museum for four decades, and a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Hugh Hildesley, who joined Sotheby’s in 1961 and played an integral role in the company’s formative years in the US, was a longstanding colleague of Sotheby’s eminent chairman and auctioneer John L. Marion, Anne’s husband for the last 32 years of her life. He remembers: He remembers: “The sheer scope of Anne’s astounding achievements will prove influential and transformative for generations to come: from her role as President of the Burnett Foundation to founding the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum; donor of the Marion Emergency Care Center in Fort Worth, to tireless Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Kimbell Art Museum and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Anne knew quality when she saw it”.
A poster for True Grit, the film for which John Wayne won an Oscar, comes up at Fonsie Mealy’s Collectors’ Sale online from Castlecomer on March 3. Directed by Henry Hathaway the film starred John Wayne, Glen Campbell and Kim Darby. The poster is estimated at 120-180 in a sale of collectibles including literature, local and national history, sport and cinema.
After a century in the same private collection a painting by Vincent Van Gogh will make its auction debut in Paris in March with an estimate of 5-8 million. Painted in the Spring of 1887 – during Vincent van Gogh’s two-year sojourn in Paris – Scène de rue à Montmartre is from his series depicting the legendary Moulin de la Galette in Montmartre. The work has remained in the same family collection for over 100 years, and despite having been published in seven catalogues, it has never been exhibited until now. Sotheby’s and Mirabaud Mercier will present it to the public for the first time; with exhibitions to be held in Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Paris ahead of the Impressionist & Modern Art auction on March 25.
Sir John Lavery’s painting of the Viscountess Castlerosse at Palm Springs. comes up at Christie’s Modern British Art evening sale in London on March 1 with an estimate of £400,000-600,000. With all its connotations of the rich at play in the years between the First and Second World Wars it is redolent of an era long gone. Doris Delavigne married the 6th Earl of Kenmare in 1928. A similar version of the scene sold for €50,000 at de Veres in Dublin in 2014.
Christie’s list the provenance as: The artist, and by descent to his granddaughter, Lady Ann Sempill.
Her sale; Christie’s, London, 13 May 1966, lot 77, as ‘Portrait of Lady Castlerosse, seated on a springboard at Palm Springs’.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 22 May 1997, lot 264, as ‘Lady Castlerosse on a diving board’, where purchased by the present owner.
All lots sold and 72 of the 75 on offer made more than their top estimates at Christie’s Deep Impact: Martian Lunar and Other Rare Meteorites online only sale from New York. It brought in $4,351,750 and attracted bidders from 23 countries across five continents. A slice of the moon, the fourth largest in this world, made $525,000 over a top estimate of $350,000 and a sphere fashioned from a lunar meteorite made $500,000 over a top estimate of $25,000. A 1.7 gram sample of the planet Mars sold for $13,750, worth more than 100 times its weight in gold.
Wet Sands at Booterstown by Desmond Carrick (1928-2012) is among the lots at Whyte’s Spring Art sale in Dublin on March 1. It is estimated at 1,000-1,500 in a timed online auction which runs until March 1. Whytes say that this is an ideal sale for new and seasoned collectors. More than 260 with estimates from 50-5,000 will come under the hammer. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,300 AT HAMMER
