Banksy’s Sunflowers from Petrol Station from the collection of the British designer Sir Paul Smith will highlight Christie’s 21st Century Art evening sale in New York on November 9. It is estimated at $12,000,000- $18,000,000. It is part of a limited group of Banksy works that belong in the realm of fine art objects as opposed to the street art editions for which he is best known. In this example, the artist presents a painterly and conceptual defacement of the Van Gogh masterpiece, Sunflowers. As well as riffing on the comedy of wilted petrol station flowers – a far cry from Van Gogh’s magnificent blooms – the title implicates the pollution of both nature and culture at the hands of big corporations.
Big Bang Red, a limited edition screenprint of The Rolling Stones by Ronnie Wood, comes up at Hegarty’s art auction in Bandon on October 17. It is from the collection of his former wife Jo Wood and is estimated at 3,300-5,500. Ronnie Wood studied at Ealing College of Art and is a prolific painter.
Excitement is building about the first post lockdown antique fair which takes place over three days at the South Court Hotel in Limerick from Friday, October 22, the hoped for day when restrictions are due to come to an end. Dealers from right around the island of Ireland who have been unable to display their wares during lockdown have scrambled to get in.New to this fair will be a range of antique furniture and jewellery including French furniture from Co. Tipperary based Nevil Dukes, Raven stamps of Cork and Persian and Turkish rugs from Annamoe Antiques, Co. Wicklow. An array of antique furniture, Irish art, silver, coins, vintage items, militaria, porcelain and collectibles will be on display. The last physical as distinct from virtual fair organised by Hibernian Antique Fairs was in Co. Roscommon on February 29 and March 1, 2020 and the hope is that this fair will release much pent up demand.
Nevil Dukes will bring this 19th century green French commode with chinoiserie decoratio
Irish George II secretaire inlaid with filigree marque. UPDATE: THIS MADE 18,000 AT HAMMER
Serious collectors of fine Irish Georgian furniture will find much of interest at Adams annual Country House Collections on October 18 and 19. Viewing for this annual auction, which this year offers a particularly good selection of 18th century Irish furniture alongside fine examples of classical Irish art and silver, gets underway at Townley Hall near Drogheda next Friday. Among various highly covetable rarities is a c1730/40 George II Irish secretaire cabinet with a scrolled broken pediment inlaid with filigree marquetry and Comedia dell’Arte figures. Adams estimate it at €20,000-€30,000. There is a similar example in Irish Furniture by The Knight of Glin and James Peill. Another mid Georgian Irish secretaire bookcase with a more traditional straight front design, at one stage in the home of Lord Monteagle at Mount Trenchard House near Foynes, is estimated at €30,000-€40,000.An Irish George II mahogany side table in the manner of Richard Cranfield, was in the collection of Lord Leverhulme of Sunlight Soap fame before being sold in New York in 1926. It has an unusual design of corner truss legs and Greek key frieze and is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. A stunning Irish mahogany side table with an apron carved with scrolls and acanthus leaves and a centre scallop shell is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. So is a compartmental George III pier mirror notable for the blue and clear glass bead decoration so associated with Irish mirrors.There is a wonderful dining table measuring over five metres long on three centre quadropod supports. It is estimated at €30,000-€40,000. A set of 18 Regency dining chairs come with an estimate of €20,000-€30,000. Collectible pieces of Irish furniture such as a Killarney work centre table (€2,000-€3,000) are on offer at less stratospheric prices and not everything in the sale is Irish.A remarkable nine piece suite of Anglo-Indian gilt wood furniture, latterly at Prehen House in Derry, was included in the Castletown House, Co. Kildare inventory of 1893 as “Bombay” furniture. It is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. An example of fine English cabinet making is a George III knee hole desk after a design by Thomas Chippendale.Among the silverware is a pair of Dublin 1765 tureens by R. Holmes and a rare Irish George I bullet shaped teapot made in Cork in 1725 by William Clarke. There is a selection of gold boxes from the private collection of an Italian noblewoman. The sale contains two marble busts by the Irish sculptor Christopher Moore, one of the 3rd Duke of Leinster, one of William, 1st Baron Plunkett, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Both date to 1843.Garret Morphy (c1650-1716) is regarded as the first Irish born artist of stature. His 1696 portrait of Anne Boyle, 2nd Lady Mountjoy in a landscape holding a dove accompanied by Cupid, is estimated at €30,000-€40,000. There are two landscapes by James B. McCoy (c1750-1780), whose work is rare, and a double portrait by James Latham (1696-1747) considered the leading portrait painter in Dublin in the first half of the 18th century. A comparable example of this portrait of An Architect and his Son can be found in a family group at Fota.Adams advise that this spectacular sale ought to viewed in person and it can be seen in the elegant and neo-classical surroundings of Townley Hall for three days from next Friday. The live and online auction takes place at Adams St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, saleroom on October 18 and 19.
Garret Morphy (c1650-1716) – Portrait of Anne Boyle, 2nd Lady Mountjoy. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Sandro Botticelli – The Man of Sorrows UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $45.5 MILLION
One of the last great Botticelli masterpieces in private hands will come up at Sotheby’s in New York next January during Masters Week. The Man of Sorrows – which portrays the resurrected Christ – is a late work produced at a time when the artist had come under the influence of fanatical Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola. It has an estimate of in excess of $40 million. It comes to market following the record-breaking sale of Botticelli’s Young Man Holding a Roundel at Sotheby’s last January. It made $92.2 million.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for January 28, 2021)
PAUL HENRY RHA (1876-1958) – Turf Stacks in Connemara. UPDATE: THIS MADE 190,000 AT HAMMER
Turf Stacks in Connemara by Paul Henry will be a highlight at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International online art sale on October 26. Measuring just 14″ x 16.1″ it is estimated at €120,000-160,000. The catalogue for this sale of 145 lots is online and it will be on view in Skibbereen from October 15-17 and in Dublin at the Minerva Suite at the RDS from October 22-25.
Boat, Connemara by Lucian Freud comes up at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening sale in London on October 14 with an estimate of £750,000-£950,000. It is one of two works the artist produced while in Ireland for three weeks in August 1948. It appeared on the market for the first time in more than 50 years at Christie’s in 2012 with an estimate of £200,000-300,000 and sold for £657,250. It is being sold by the owner who acquired it then. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for January 30, 2012)
A Yeats from the collection of Barney Eastwood comes up at Christie’s Modern British and Irish art sale in London on October 20. A Sea Town from 1931 is estimated at £200,000-300,000. It is one of several Irish works in an auction with works by Winston Churchill, Elisabeth Frink, L.S. Lowry, Patrick Caulfield and Samuel John Peploe which is now online for browsing.
This William and Mary walnut chest comes up as lot 38 at Sheppards sale of contents of 33 Wellington Place, Dublin online from Durrow on October 21. It is estimated at 1,500-2,500. There are 168 lots in this evening sale and the catalogue is online.
In France the National Museum has acquired The Bust of Georges Mareschal, by François Girardon one of the great sculptors of Louis XIV’s reign. Stuart Lochhead Sculpture presented the bust during TEFAF Maastricht 2020, where it had an asking price of €2.6 million. Georges Mareschal was a former inhabitant of Versailles and an important figure at the court of Louis XIV as the king’s first surgeon, who remained at the king’s side until his death in 1715.
