This Secessionist vase by Loetz Witw is available from Hickmet Fine Arts as part of the LAPADA Berkeley Square Fair pre-promotional sale priced at £2,083. Hickmet Fine Arts, established in 1936 and now in its third generation, exhibits the finest European sculptures and art glass at major antiques fairs in both the United Kingdom and the USA. LAPADA’S membership has grown to over 550 members, making it the largest association of professional art and antiques dealers in the United Kingdom. To celebrate the unparalleled caliber of LAPADA dealers, the pre-promotional sale highlights exhibiting and non-exhibiting members alike, introducing you to some of the finest dealers in the industry. At the upcoming Berkeley Square Fair from September 27 – October 1, visitors can expect to see everything from traditional antiques to contemporary art and design, as well as jewellery, textiles, and decorative arts from over 100 participating galleries.
There is widespread regret in the Irish antique trade at the death this month of Gerald Kenyon, who was 96. Born in Chester and an eighth generation antique dealer he established himself as one of Ireland’s leading antique dealers with shops at various times in Dublin in South William St., Powerscourt Town House Centre and Lower Ormonde Quay. A founder exhibitor at the Irish Antique Dealers Fair he penned an invaluable book, The Irish Furniture at Malahide Castle and dealt is superb pieces of every sort. A kind, generous, lively and flamboyant person he was always very generous in sharing his prodigious knowledge of fine furniture
Freddie Mercury’s silver moustache comb, Tiffany & Co., late 20th century. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £152,400
Freddie Mercury’s silver moustache comb has caught the imagination of the public and is a surprise hit of the series of sales at Sotheby’s in London and online due to get underway next week. Estimated at £400-£600 the current bid stands at £26,000. The London exhibition at Sotheby’s, Freddie Mercury, A World of his Own, has already drawn 40,000 visitors. It runs until September 5, the day before the live auctions begin.
On left: Jo Baer, Snow-Laden Primeval (Meditations, on Log Phase and Decline rampant with Flatulent Cows and Carbon Cars), 2020, On right: Anne Madden / Death of Ann Lovett (1968-1984) / 2020-21
Continuing a programming strand that champions the practices of long-established female artists solo exhibitions by Jo Baer and Anne Madden will run at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) until next January 21. Coming Home Late: Jo Baer In the Land of the Giants,brings together a series of recent paintings inspired by the artist’s stay in the archaeologically rich countryside of Co. Louth between 1975 and 1982. Born in 1929, Baer was one of the key figures of the Minimalist painting movement in New York in the 1960s and early 1970s culminating in an acclaimed solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1975. That same year Baer abandoned left New York to become chatelain of Smarmore Castle in Co. Louth. Over the next seven years, her practice gradually shifted towards a ‘radical figuration’, also known as ‘image constellations’ that combine figural elements, text, images, and symbols. The series of six works completed between 2009 and 2013, presented alongside two additional paintings dating to 2020, was fuelled by Baer’s continued research into Irish Neolithic artefacts and myths.
Seven Paintings by Anne Madden(b.1932) is a series made during the Covid-19 pandemic. Madden’s themes explore the transformative forces and cyclical nature of life and experience. Ideas of the empyrean, the subterranean and of the emergence from darkness to light have informed all of her work. The present series continues to excavate the human imprint through themes of death, rebirth, liminality and hubris, and draws on ancient forms and mythologies that give potent shape and expression to the anarchic forces and uncertainties of today. The paintings reference Antigone, Ariadne and Daphne, archetypal women whose voices are not silenced, in spite of their fate, and who connect with existential, feminist perspectives today. In their midst is Ann Lovett – a young girl of our time. Death of Ann Lovett (1968-1984),recalls the teenager’s tragic death in childbirth in a religious grotto in rural Ireland and the surrounding hypocrisy, silence and the failure of the social system, an event which continues to resonate deeply in Irish society.
The Road Bends is the title of this oil on paper by Donald Teskey at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of the Ulster Bank Art Collection on the evening of August 28. UPDATE: THIS MADE 9,000 AT HAMMER
EXTENSIVE COMPOSITE SEVRES PORCELAIN GREEN-GROUND PART DINNER AND DESSERT SERVICE. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $226,800
Rothschild Masterpieces at Christie’s in New York next October will include a magnificent selection of 600 lots of decorative and fine art. The first ever North American sales of objects from one of the great collecting families in history comprises objects assembled in France by two generations of Rothschilds mostly during the latter half of the 19th century. Highlights include The Triumph of David, a set of Dutch School painted and embossed leather panels laid down on canvas, a third quarter of the 16th century Limoges enamel charger, a Dutch silver gilt mounted nautilus cup (Delft 1607) and an Italian 16th century oval armorial dish. They were purchased by Baron James and his wife Betty and Baron Alphonse and his wife Leonora for their palatial Chateau de Ferrieres outside Paris (it opened in 1862 with a gala attended by Napoleon III) and for their houses in the city. The chateau was donated to France in 1975. The total estimate for this selection of furniture, enamels, maiolica, Renaissance jewels, silver and paintings is in excess of $20 million (€18.24 million). There is to be an evening sale at the Rockefeller Center on October 11, two days sales on October 12 and 13 and an online sale. UPDATE: THE ROTHSCHILD MASTERPIECES EVENING SALE REALISED $43,237,900
UPDATE: THE Rothschild auction series brought in $62.6 million. The four sales averaged 280 percent sold hammer above low estimate, and 98 percent sold by lot. Millennial buyers accounted for an average of 15 percent of bidders and buyers across the week, and bidders and buyers from 40 nations participated.
Still life with Flowers by Lily Williams (1874-1940) UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,200 AT HAMMER
f you seek to add beauty and interest to your surroundings the timed online At Home sale at James Adam in Dublin on September 4 is a good place to start. The appetising selection of large and small pieces across various price points ranges from conversation pieces like a French Art Deco figure of a young woman in a green dress to mirrors, desks, antique furniture, silver, lanterns and even a cast iron garden bench modelled with oak boughs. The catalogue cover lot is a Still Life with Flowers by Lily Williams ARHA (1874-1940) the artist and Republican who fell out with her Unionist family during the Easter Rising. Work by Williams, who designed the Cross of Cong postage stamp used in Ireland from 1922-1968, does not turn up very often at auction. The oil on board is estimated at €1,000-€1,500. Among other art lots are miniature portraits from an Irish collector and a painting of Sunset over a Churchyard by the English artist Daniel Sherrin. The highly collectible silver on offer includes a pair of serving spoons by the Cork maker John Toleken, an 18th century butter dish by Paul Storr and a fruit basket by the English silversmith Hester Bateman (1708-1794) renowned both for her flatware and ornamental work. The Arts and Crafts Movement features in the sale with lots including a secretaire with classic decorative motifs by George Montgomery Ellwood (1875-1955), large copper chargers, an oak dresser and an oak chest. There are examples of 19th century French furniture in Kingwood and marquetry including a marble topped credenza and a secretaire in the Louis Quinze taste along with a good choice of useful domestic antique furniture pieces from curio tables to chairs, teapoys and a circular burr walnut tilt top table. There is a selection of overmantles and mirrors, as well as various types of lighting from chandeliers and a brass standard lamp to a hexagonal hall lantern and an unusual pair of brass and polychrome enamel column lamps. English, European and Oriental porcelain on offer includes dinner and tea services and there is a range of carpets, kilims and rugs.
George III rectangular kneehole desk. UPDATE: THIS MADE 800 AT HAMMER
JOHN B. VALLELY (B.1941) – Five Musicians. UPDATE: THIS MADE 15,000 AT HAMMER
THIS oil on canvas by John B Vallely comes up as lot 14 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish art online auction from the Ulster Bank Collection for Community Foundation Ireland. It is estimated at €5,000-€7,500. The catalogue for the sale, which is now on view in Skibbereen, is online. The wide ranging collection of more than 250 lots on offer caters to a wide variety of tastes. Bidding ends on the evening of August 28.
St. Audoen’s Society of Bellringers (l to r) – Maurice O’Reilly,Julian West,Derek McEndoo,Jason Lynam, Seán Waldron, Kathleen McEndoo, Joe Kealy , Clodagh Canavan, Lesley Hayes, Robert MacDonald and Theresa Nolan.
St Audoen’s Church and The Office of Public Works (OPW) are delighted to celebrate the 600th anniversary of three of its bells located in the church’s 15th-century bell tower. To mark the occasion St Audoen’s Society of Bellringers will ring the bellson Saturday, August 26 at 2 pm. Nestled in the heart of the walled medieval part of Dublin, St Audoen’s Church at High St. in The Liberties was originally founded in 1190 and is the only remaining medieval parish church in the capital still in use. The Office of Public Works who help preserve and maintain the site also welcome visitors to the historic location. A team of guides give insight into the chequered history of the church, the tower and the celebrated bells.
St Audoen’s was crucial to the life of the medieval city. Here papal bulls were pronounced and public penances carried out. The church is dedicated to the seventh-century bishop of Rouen and patron saint of Normandy, whose feast day is August 24.
This life size Black Forest sculpture of a standing bear is among the top lots at Aidan Foley’s two day hotel interiors auction at Prussia St. in Dublin on September 4 and 5. A total of 1,260 lots will come under the hammer. Among the main ones there is art by Marie Carroll, Markey Robinson, Ann Marie Bourke, Graham Knuttel and a pencil drawing by Jack B Yeats, there is a bronze bust of Michael Collins, some old whisky distillery mirrors and a big selection of hotel furniture and fittings at very reasonable estimates. The Black Forest bear is estimated at €1,200-€1,600 and the catalogue for the sale is online. Viewing in Dublin gets underway on September 1. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,200 AT HAMMER
