ROSE MAYNARD BARTON (1856-1929) – Coming from the Dairy, Lancelot Place, London (Knightsbridge) (1924). UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,100 AT HAMMER
What a difference 98 years makes. It is Knightsbridge, but not as we know it. This 1924 watercolour on paper by Rose Barton shows Lancelot Place, Knightsbridge, in 1924. It comes up at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online auction of Important Irish Art which runs until June 20. In The Dairy at Lancelot Place Barton, who lived nearby, depicts a woman carrying a jug of milk and holding a child by the hand. In a catalogue note Peter Murray writes: “Although preserving much of the rural character of eighteenth-century London, Lancelot Place was by then just a stone’s throw from the new Harrods department store. Today, the street is lined with modern apartment buildings, making Barton’s watercolour an all the more valuable record of London’s past”. Barton first showed at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1878, and in London two years later, at the Dudley Gallery. Over the following decade she had successful exhibitions in both London and Dublin. Elected an associate member of the Society Women Artists by 1886, seven years later she became an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colour, (RWS) and a full member in 1911. This work is estimated at €2,000-€3,000.
Jakob Van Der Goten (1659-1724) – Orpheus Playing a Lyre, by a Water Garden with Canals, Fountain and Classical Buildings UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This c1720 Antwerp tapestry by Jakob Van Der Goten comes up as lot 1470 at Fonsie Mealy’s Chatsworth Summer Fine Art sale on June 14, 15 and 16. Measuring 8’7″ x 13’8″ it was purchased in 1991 from the Marble Hall, Powderham Castle, Devon. It is estimated at €8,000-€12,000. A total of 1,476 lots of fine furniture, antiques, silver, ceramics, objets d’Art, paintings, Old Masters, clocks, taxidermy, jewellery, fireplaces, musical instruments, carpets and light fittings will come under the hammer. Viewing gets underway in Castlecomer on June 9 and the catalogue is online.
Psyche or the Legend of Love by Mary Tighe. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £7,012.50
This is James Barry’s inscribed copy of Mary Tighe’s Psyche of the Legend of Love. The author’s presentation copy of the 1805 private edition is inscribed for the painter James Barry. Irish romantic poet Mary Tighe (1772-1810) never lived to experience the esteem she enjoys today. She wrote one work only, Psyche or the Legend of Love, which was released in 1805 in a private edition of fifty copies for family and friends. This copy comes up at Bonhams Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in London on June 22 with an estimate of £4,000-6,000.
Matthew Haley, Bonhams Head of Books and Manuscripts, said: “Mary Tighe was a seminal figure in Irish and indeed British Romanticism. She had many influential admirers during her short life including Thomas Moore, Joseph Cooper Walker and the Ladies of Llangollen but chronic ill health restricted her output to Psyche or the Legend of Love. Earlier this year Bonhams sold a notebook manuscript of her poems, so it is a particular pleasure to be offering this sumptuously-bound copy of the printed work.”
PAUL HENRY RHA (1876-1958) – A BOG NEAR DINGLE, COUNTY KERRY, c.1928-30
Paul Henry’s painting of a bog near Dingle made a hammer price of 75,000 against a top estimate of 70,000 at Whyte’s sale of Irish and International Art in Dublin this evening. The Little Sister of the Gang by Jack B. Yeats made 200,000 at hammer, the figure at the top of the estimate. The Reading Room by Yeats made 95,000 over a top estimate of 90,000 and Patrick Heron’s Emerald with Reds and Cerulean made 140,000. Peter Curling’s Horse Fair at Goresbridge, Co. Kilkenny made 42,000 over a top estimate of 40,000 and works by Grace Henry, William John Leech, Lilian Lucy Davidson, Basil Blackshaw and Hughie O’Donoghue all exceeded the top estimate. The sale grossed 1.5 million and was 85% sold.
HORACE HONE ARA (1756-1825) – PORTRAIT OF A LADY, 1788. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This 1788 portrait miniature by Horace Hone comes up as lot 104 at Whyte’s sale of Irish and International Art in Dublin this evening. The live online auction is on view at the RDS until 6 pm today, when bidding begins. The watercolour on ivory, one of a number of miniatures on sale, is signed with the initials and dated. It was shown at the Gorry Gallery exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings in Dublin in 2020 and is in excellent condition. It is estimated at 1,200-1,800.
This Wisteria Transom window from Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Long Island estate, Laurelton Hall, comes up at Christie’s in New York on June 10) with an estimate of $700,000-$1,000,000. Made around 1905 it is the only window from the iconic seven pane transom at the dining room of his home in private hands. The window will highlight a sale of masterworks from the Garden Museum. This single owner sale presents one of the greatest Tiffany collections in existence. It was amassed in the 1990’s by the Japanese businessman Takeo Horiuchi, who endeavoured to open a museum dedicated to Tiffany. Among the highlights are a peacock window and clematis skylights, a yellow rose floor lamp and a dragonfly and waterflowers table lamp formerly in the collection of Barbra Streisand.
UPDATE: THE SALE OF TIFFANY MASTERWORKS FROM THE GARDEN MUSEUM TOTALLED $6.6 MILLION
Diego Giacometti designed door knocker (€80,000-120,000). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR €151,200
The almost unbelievable style involved in owning a door knocker by Diego Giacometti speaks volumes about Hubert de Givenchy – a collector with a unique taste for mixing and matching modernity and classicism.
Deeply rooted in the culture of his country the world renowned couturier always considered furniture in dialogue with works of art. His magnificent homes – Hôtel d’Orrouer in Paris and Château du Jonchet in the Loire Valley – display the fruits of this hugely successful quest for an ideal of classical beauty. Starting this week the collection of Hubert de Givenchy comes up at four live auctions and two online sales at Christie’s in Paris. With 1,229 lots of extraordinary variety and richness put together with impeccable good taste the overall estimate is in the region of €50 million. There are nearly 200 paintings including works by Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, Claudio Bravo, Max Ernst and Kurt Schwitters: over 100 sculptures with examples by Alberto and Diego Giacometti, Francois Girardon, Francois-Xavier Lalanne and Janine Janet and more than 440 pieces of seat furniture by makers and designers from the 18th to the 20th century.
A late 18th century desk with mechanism by David Roentgen (Louis XVI and the Count of Provence each owned a version, there is one at Buckingham Palace and at the Palace of Versailles. (€500,000-800,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE €1,750,000 AT HAMMER
Online auctions – the art of living and the art of hospitality – get underway on June 8 and run to June 22 and June 23 respectively. There will be four live auctions on successive days beginning with masterpieces on June 14. With a remarkable gathering of nearly 800 pieces of French and European furniture Christie’s promise that these sales will be unmissable. Among masterpieces of classical furniture from the French Regency period to the Neoclassical and beyond is a Regence console from the collection of Coco Chanel who frequently invited him for dinner. A pot pourri vase is thought to have been acquired by the King of Naples around 1780 and a pair of monumental girandoles attributed to Pierre-Philippe Thomire were made for Tsar Paul I of Russia.
Louis XVI gilt-beechwood bergère stamped by N.-Quinibert Foliot, c1770 with fabric design by Georges Braque (€6,000 – 10,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE €157,500
A Louis XVI bergere with a textile designed by Georges Braque is one example of his taste for re-upholstering antique furniture with modern textiles. He loved the colour green for its calming and relaxing properties and a natural sponge painted in green by Charles Sevigny is a nod to another master of the art of mixing modern and classical works. There are masterpieces of modern art from his friend and collaborator Alberto Giacometti whose Woman Walking is estimated at €20-€30 million. This piece greeted visitors to the first drawing room in the home of Givenchy and Philippe Venet on Rue de Grenelle. A key painting by Joan Miro is titled Passage of the Migratory Bird and there are several works by Alberto’s brother Diego Giacometti (whose door knocker was at Château du Jonchet) and more contemporary pieces by Claudio Bravo and Francois-Xavier Lalanne. It promises to be a sale to remember, well worth exploring online.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for March 10, 2022)
Etruscan Evening (1989) by Stephen McKenna. UPDATE: THIS MADE 19,000 AT HAMMER
Viewing for Whyte’s Irish and International art sale gets underway today at the RDS. There is art by Jack B. Yeats, Paul Henry, Patrick Heron, Louis le Brocquy, Norah McGuinness, Sean Keating, Patrick Scott, Grace Henry, Peter Curling, Howard Helmick, John Behan, Patrick O’Reilly, Edward Delaney and a wide variety of other acclaimed painters and sculptors. Viewing is from 10 am to 5 pm for the next three days and the auction is at 6 pm on Monday.
THIS painting of three catholic priests murdered by British Crown Forces a century ago comes up at O’Donovan’s sale in Newcastlewest, Co. Limerick onJune 11. It emerged from the attic of an estate in Limerick along with ten editions of the South Western Command War News (August-October 1922) and four editions of the Limerick War News (July and August 2022). Enniskeane native Fr. James O’Callaghan, cc Clogheen, Cork was shot dead in May 1921 aged 36; Canon Thomas Magner (73), the parish priest in Dunmanway, was murdered in December 1920. Local man Tadgh Crowley was murdered on the same day. Fr. Michael Griffin (29) of Gurteen, Co. Galway was abducted from his house at Rahoon, Galway in November 1920. His body was. discovered six days later.
Rug on the rocks – Annamore Antiques will bring a selection of Persian rugs to the fair
A much enlarged Opera Festival antiques and art fair takes place on June 4 and 5 at the community centre in the shadow of Lismore Castle. Among the members of the Irish Antique Dealers Association who will attend are Marie Curran (jewellery and silver) Dublin, Greene’s Antiques of Drogheda and Treasures Irish Art from Athlone.
Dealers from right around the country will bring an appetising selection of Irish art, French antique furniture, Persian rugs, high end vintage fashion with a global provenance, jewellery, oil lamps, porcelain, glass, coins, banknotes, boxes, militaria and collectibles including clocks. There will be small easily carried pieces and even genealogy solutions. Organiser Robin O’Donnell of Hibernian Antique Fairs who managed to keep fairs going online during lockdown will make another online offering soon; he plans to sell online his own private collection gathered over the past 35 years in a format similar to the online fairs.
