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  • Archive for May, 2022

    UNIQUE TABLE BY JOSEPH WALSH AT SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK

    Tuesday, May 31st, 2022
    Joseph Walsh – Unique “Lumenoria” Table. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    This unique Lumenoria table by Joseph Walsh comes up at Sotheby’s Important Design sale in New York on June 9 with an estimate of $150,000-200,000. This beautiful and dynamic dining table marks a pivotal moment in the career of celebrated contemporary Irish designer Joseph Walsh according to Sotheby’s. Since 1999, Walsh has been experimenting with laminating and bending wood, creating highly expressive and sculptural furniture and installations. Some of his career-defining commissions include work for the Embassy of Japan, the National Museum of Ireland, and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.  The catalogue notes that: “In his woodworking practice, Walsh infuses techniques from his broad and deep understanding of other traditional craft methods. This innovative approach to making yields masterfully crafted furniture as evidenced in this dining table. Here, Walsh has expanded his material experiments by combining a slowly hand-poured clear resin top over a custom freeform base, resulting in poetic interplay between the materials. “Each piece is unique, speaking of the materials, process and a moment in time,” reads his artistic statement for the series. This unique dining table presents as a visual marvel where light twinkles through the transparent top to rain down and animate the swirling ash wood base below”. It was acquired directly from Joseph Walsh by the present owner. The catalogue also features an Enignum II chair by Walsh with an estimate of 10,000-15,000. UPDATE: THE CHAIR MADE $12,600.

    LARGE IRISH MIRRORS AT FONSIE MEALY’S JUNE SALE

    Tuesday, May 31st, 2022
    Pair of Irish carved giltwood compartmental Console Mirrors, UPDATE: THESE MADE 11,000 AT HAMMER

    This pair of Irish giltwood mirrors attributed to James Hicks of Dublin will feature at Fonsie Mealy’s Chatsworth summer fine art sale on June 14, 15 and 16. Each one is around eight feet high and crested with stylised shell and flowers. There is trellis work and interlaced ribbons and foliage on the outer panels and they are estimated at 7,000-9,000. The catalogue for this sale of 1,478 lots is online now.

    MONET TO HIGHLIGHT CHRISTIE’S SALE IN LONDON

    Monday, May 30th, 2022
    Claude Monet – Waterloo Bridge, effet de brume (1904) UPDATE; THIS MADE £30,059,500

    Monet’s atmospheric London series view of Waterloo Bridge comes up at Christie’s 20th/21st Century evening sale on June 28. Last seen at auction in 1939 it has been in the same family collection since it was acquired by Arde Bulova, chairman of the Bulova Watch Company in 1951. Prestigious early provenance also includes Paul Durand-Ruel, Adolph Lewisohn and the D.P. Allen Memorial Art Museum, at Oberlin College in Ohio. Of the 41 iconic paintings of Waterloo Bridge that Monet painted between 1899-1904, 26 are in public institutions, including The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; Bührle Foundation, Zürich; Art Institute of Chicago; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and Kunstmuseum Bern. Waterloo Bridge, effet de brume was most recently on long term loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel.

    The sale of Waterloo Bridge, effet de brume follows the exceptional price achieved for Le Parlement, soleil couchant, from the collection of Anne H. Bass, which sold for $75.9 million on May 12 in New York, setting a record for a painting from Monet’s Vues du Londres.  The estimate for this work is in the region of £24 million.

    COOL FOUNTAIN IN SEARCH OF WARM GARDEN

    Sunday, May 29th, 2022

    THIS exceptional three tiered moulded stone French fountain is the top lot at the summer garden sale by Victor Mee on June 15. The surround is decorated with shells and lion’s masks and is estimated at 5,000-10,000. The online sale of 430 lots features benches, planters, animal models, statues, gazebos and various objects designed to enhance the garden. UPDATE: THIS MADE 6,000 AT HAMMER

    CONTRASTING WORKS AT WHYTE’S ART AUCTION

    Sunday, May 29th, 2022
    JACK BUTLER YEATS RHA (1871-1957) – THE LITTLE SISTER OF THE GANG [FITZWILLIAM SQUARE], 1944. UPDATE: THIS MADE 200,000 AT HAMMER

    A particularly tender oil by Jack B. Yeats – The Little Sister of the Gang (Fitzwilliam Square) 1944 (€150,000-€200,000) – comes up at Whyte’s sale of Irish and International Art at the RDS on June 6. It shows one of a gang of boys holding the hand and carefully looking after a much younger yellow haired girl. In complete contrast is Patrick Heron’s Emerald with Reds and Cerulean (1977) (€150,000-€200,000).  These two works demonstrate the widely differing styles of art on offer at Whyte’s sale of 156 lots. They range from an Untitled 1977 Tuft Wall Hanging by Patrick Scott (€15,000-€20,000) to A Horsefair at Goresbridge, Co. Kilkenny by Peter Curling (€30,000-€40,000).  The Patrick Scott work was commissioned by McGarry Ni Eanaigh for the s3 Building at Leopardstown in 1997 and made by V’Soske Joyce of Oughterard.  The entire proceeds of the sale of this lot will be donated to the Irish Red Cross Ukraine Appeal courtesy of s3 Connected Health and Whyte’s.

    An unusual four part portrait of Penelope Collins, daughter of the artist Patrick Collins, by Basil Blackshaw is estimated at €10,000-€15,000.The catalogue cover lot is Fair Day, Westport, Co. Mayo c1943 by Lillian Lucy Davidson (€20,000-€30,000). Viewing gets underway on June 4.

    PATRICK HERON CBE (1920-1999) – Emerald with Reds and Cerulean   UPDATE: THIS MADE 140,000 AT HAMMER

    O’DONOGHUE’S YELLOW MAN AT JAMES ADAM IN DUBLIN

    Saturday, May 28th, 2022
    The Yellow Man by Hughie O’Donoghue. UPDATE: THIS MADE 57,000 AT HAMMER

    Hughie O’Donoghue’s Yellow Man II from 2008 from a series   inspired by a Van Gogh self-portrait known only from photographs and thought lost in a fire, comes up at Adams sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on June 1.  It is estimated at €40,000-€60,000.  Another 21st century work of note is Barry Flanagan’s Horse on Anvil (€20,000-€30,000).  Best known in Ireland for his remarkable sculptural hares exhibited around O’Connell St. at the time of his Dublin retrospective in 2006 Barry Flanagan is celebrated too for sculpted horses, cougars and elephants.  There are prominent horse sculptures by him in Cambridge and in Montreal.

    The Bridge at Skibbereen (1919) and The Folded Heart (1943) by Jack Butler Yeats are estimated respectively at €400,000-€600,000 and €250,000-€350,000.  Gerard Dillon’s Across from Innislacken (€60,000-€80,000) dates to c1951 while Tony O’Malley’s Arrieta-Orzola (Lanzarote) from 1988 is estimated at €25,000-€35,000.  Sun Rising; An extensive wooded landscape with fishermen by George Barret (€100,000-€150,000) is described by Adams as a masterpiece of 18th century Irish art.  Chiswick Baths by Sir John Lavery is estimated at €80,000-€120,000.  The Adams sale, which includes a 1916 copy of The Proclamation (€150,000-€200,000), is on view at St. Stephen’s Green today and every day until next Wednesday at 4 pm and online.  There are 118 lots and it gets underway at 6 pm on Wednesday.

    (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 21, 2022)

    Horse on Anvil by Barry Flanagan. UPDATE: THIS MADE 30,000 AT HAMMER

    RARE COPY OF ULYSSES WITH FASCINATING HISTORY AT BONHAMS

    Friday, May 27th, 2022
    PRESS COPY. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    The obstacles faced by James Joyce (1882-1941) in publishing his landmark modernist novel Ulysses would have tested the ingenuity of the hero of the Ancient World after whom the book is named. Judged too risqué to pass the draconian British obscenity laws, the novel was eventually published 100 years ago this year in Paris by Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company, in an edition of 1,000. The original plan to publish on February 2 (Joyce’s 40th birthday) was thwarted by technical issues over the colour of the cover – the writer specified the blue of the Greek flag – and so only two copies were produced that day. To compound the problems, Beach seems to have forgotten to order the extra copies for the press. There should have been 40 press copies but in the event only 13 were produced – unbound and on very poor-quality paper. One of them with a fascinating history of its own is to be sold at Bonhams Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in London on June 22.  It is estimated at £30,000-50,000.

    Bonhams Head of Books and Manuscripts, Matthew Haley, said: “The history of this press copy is as dramatic as the publication of Ulysses itself. It had been sent for review to Jack Squire, editor of the London Mercury. No fan of the Modernists, (the feeling was mutual, Virginia Woolf calling him ‘more repulsive than words can express’), Squire took one look at the novel and ordered his secretary to burn it. But the book was bulky, the stove small and she soon gave up. Some years later this copy, by then incomplete, was found in a cupboard by Squire’s assistant editor, Alan Pryce-Jones, who, defying a further order to consign it to the flames, smuggled it to safety.”

    POETRY BOOK GIFTED BY ROGER CASEMENT AT MULLEN’S COLLECTOR’S CABINET SALE

    Thursday, May 26th, 2022
    UPDATE: THIS MADE 7,000 AT HAMMER

    This poetry book signed and inscribed by the Irish patriot Roger Casement on the eve of his execution is at €7,000-10,000 the most expensively estimated lot at Mullen’s Collector’s Cabinet live and online auction on May 28. Lot 104, a Lyrical Chronicle of Ireland published by Burns & Oates, London, c.1900 was gifted by Casement to his confessor in Pentonville Prison. Inscribed by Casement in English and Irish it reads: ” For Father Murnane”, above four stanzas of a poem by Casement, signed with initials ‘R.C.’ and “2 August 1916 – in Pentonville”. Roger Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison at dawn on 3 August 1916.

    There are 537 lots of history, militaria and collectibles including sporting memorabilia and toys in the auction. Lot 1 is the upper section of the skull of a Great Irish Elk on a custom made stand.

    PAIR OF ARMCHAIRS BY JEAN ROYERE MAKE €1.6 MILLION

    Wednesday, May 25th, 2022
    THIS PAIR OF ARMCHAIRS BY JEAN ROYERE (1902-1981) MADE €1.6 million

    A pair of fauteuils ‘ Boule’ dits ‘ours Polaire’ by Jean Royere sold for €1.6 million at Christie’s Design sale in Paris on May 25. With 167 lots the sale attracted global participation with bidders from 21 countries and achieved €19,436,730. The auction opened with the Perriand by Perriand collection from the apartment-studio of Charlotte Perriand, rue las cases, in Paris. Proceeds from the sale will support the Perriand Archives. The 13 lots, most of which were prototypes designed for the designer’s studio achieved a combined total of €1,457,820. Top lot was a 16 candle chandelier Structure végétale aux papillons by Claude Lalanne, 2009. It made €2,202,000 more than twice its pre-sale low estimate.

    A LITTLE BIT OF DUBLIN THAT HAS VANISHED AT DOLAN’S

    Wednesday, May 25th, 2022

    Irish paintings and rare Irish whiskeys, antiques furniture and collectibles, clocks and Waterford Crystal, wines and champagnes, stamps and coins will all feature at Dolan’s timed online summer art auction which runs until the evening of Monday, May 30. Among the artists featured are Cecil Maguire, Norah McGuinness, Charles Lamb, Kenneth Webb, Flora MItchell, Arthur Armstong, Arthur Maderson, Mildred Anne Butler, Markey Robinson, Brian Bourke, George Campbell and Susan Cronin.

    Flora Mitchell (1890 – 1973), Winetavern Street, Dublin (these houses were demolished in the 1960’s). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD