A pair of mid 18th century card tables. UPDATE: THESE WERE UNSOLD
A pair of mid 18th century folding top card tables one of which was in the renowned collection of Simon Sainsbury – scion of the famous retailing family who died in 2006 – and a c1750 Irish side table will lead Adams annual Country House Collections at Townley Hall sale on October 14 and 15. Each lot is estimated at €30,000-€40,000.
With portraits, hard to come by collectible silver, beautiful furniture and collectibles this annual extravaganza of a sale abounds with rare and rich lots and is a magnet for collectors in Ireland and beyond. Two 18th century Irish School views of the Barne Estate between Clonmel and Cahir, a commanding presence to this day, carry an estimate of €10,000-€15,000. The online catalogue is brimful of items of interest. Viewing gets underway at Townley Hall near Drogheda on October 12. An online only sale with 245 lots gets underway on October 14 and there will be a live auction of 460 lots at Adams headquarters at St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin at 11 am the following day.
Two 18th century Irish School views of the Barne Estate, Co. Tipperary. UPDATE: THE PAIR MADE 9,500 AT HAMMER
The Rory Gallagher Collection headed by his legendary 1961 Fender Stratocaster guitar will be exhibited at Bonhams, New Bond St., London from October 12-17, when it will be auctioned. The incredible musical legacy of the legendary blues rock guitarist is celebrated by the release on October 11 of a new boxset of his recorded performances at the BBC.
Rory Gallagher The BBC Collection is a 20 disc set that includes 18 CD’s of radio concerts and sessions from 1971 to 1986 and two Blu Ray discs of BBC TV concerts and studio performances from 1973 to 1984. Though possibly the most recorded musician by the BBC in the 1970’s more than three quarters of the audio recordings have not been released before. Two CD and triple LP sets – The Best of Rory Gallagher at the BBC – will also be released.
Rory Gallagher’s iconic 1961 Fender Stratocaster. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £700,000
In Cork a crowdfunding campaign has been underway since July to bring his iconic Fender Stratocaster back home. This treasured instrument became synonymous with Gallagher and its wear and worn finish have made it one of the world’s most instantly recognisable electric guitars. It has featured in a number of landmark exhibitions, appeared on the cover of countless guitar magazines, and has been played by the likes of Johnny Marr and Joe Bonamassa.
The crowdfunder was initiated by Sheena Crowley of Crowleys Music Shop where Rory bought the guitar for £100 on an instalment plan in 1963. Sheena’s dream is that it might become the centrepiece of a new music museum on the banks of the River Lee.
Rory Gallagher’s Fender Esquire electric guitar (1959). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £95,650
The auction consists of guitars, amps and accessories from Rory Gallagher’s life and career. It will include a Fender Player Stratocaster HSS electric guitar donated by Fender to benefit the Music Venue Trust, a charity chosen by the Gallagher family dedicated to protecting, securing and improving grassroots music venues. This has been signed by a number of musicians who cite Rory as an influence, including David Gilmour, Johnny Marr, Ed O’Brien, Nile Rodgers and James Bay.
Highlights include a Fender Telecaster electric guitar (1966), a 1958 Fender Stratocaster known as Rory’s backup strat, a Fender Esquire electic guitar (1959), a Martin D-35 flat top acoustic guitar (1968), a Martin mandolin (1942), a Gibson Les Paul junior electric guitar (1958), a National Triolian resonator guitar (1930) and a Gretsch Corvette electric guitar (1963).
Rory’s brother and former manager Donal commented: ““After nearly thirty years since my brother Rory’s passing, I now believe it’s time for other people to cherish Rory’s ‘orphaned’ 1961 Fender Stratocaster and the rest of his incredible instrument collection. Since 1995, I have always felt that there was a mission to be fulfilled to cement Rory’s legacy and widen the knowledge of his music”.
The live auction on October 17, now open for bidding, consists of 94 lots. A timed online sale with 91 lots with guitars, amps, pedals, instruments, flight cases and accessories runs from October 7-18.
A rare Tychobrahe Octavia 1976/77 from the Rory Gallagher collection. This is an effects pedal designed for Jimi Hendrix and made by the Tychobrahe Sound Company in California. UPDATE: THIS MADE £3,840.
A solo presentation by Ailbhe Ni Bhriain who is represented by Kerlin Gallery, Dublin is among the international avant-garde historical and contemporary artists at Offscreen Paris from October 16-20 at Grand Garage Haussmann. At Offscreen two large-scale Jacquard tapestries by Ni Bhriain titled Interval III and Interval VIII – woven with wool, cotton, silk and lurex – are on display. Originating in collage, they are a composite of fragments, brought together to create a visual world that is at once precise and enigmatic. Both works are underpinned by loose categories of imagery: early photographic portraiture, underground caves and architectural ruins. The formal construct of the group portrait, with its projection of status and stability, is punctured at once by the deep time of geological formations and the crumbling structures of the contemporary. The resulting scenes of threshold and collapse are inhabited by an unlikely cast of creatures – animals which thread an imagined line between present-day threats of extinction and ancient narratives of the underworld. Both tapestries belong to an ongoing body of work which also encompasses a forthcoming film titled The Dream Pool Intervals. Collectively these works seek to locate the looming consciousness of climate crisis within an odd, hallucinated world, where colonial and industrial legacies fuse with our most ancient storytelling and fears.
Golds – an exhibition exploring one of the most symbolic colours in the history of art, and how it has been used and represented in the work of significant artists from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries – opens tomorrow at Ordovas on Savile Row in London. The exhibition, featuring 11 works of art, represents a diverse group of artists including Carl Andre, Lucio Fontana, Donald Judd, Giuseppe Penone, Edmund de Waal and Andy Warhol. These modern works are shown alongside a masterpiece of medieval art: an exceptional champlevé enamel chasse from Limoges, France, created circa 1200 and believed to have housed and protected one of the most precious relics: a piece of the True Cross. This is the latest in a series of exhibitions held over recent years exploring the use of a single colour; previous editions were dedicated to white in 2017 and blue in 2020. It runs until December 13.
Limoges, France, circa 1200 – A champlevé enamel chasse showing the Crucifixion Photo courtesy Sam Fogg, London.
VICTORIAN WALNUT TULIPWOOD AND MARQUETRY INLAID CREDENZA. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This fine Victorian credenza comes up on day one of the James Adam annual Country House Collections sale at Townley Hall on October 14. Bidding is now open for day one of the sale, a timed online auction of 245 lots. The credenza is lot number 237 and is estimated at €3,000-€5,000. There will be a live auction with 460 lots at St. Stephen’s Green on the following day. Viewing gets underway at Townley Hall near Drogheda on October 12. The carefully curated sale is drawn from country houses right around Ireland and the vast majority of lots have been sourced from Irish private collections. This annual auction has become one of the highlights of the antique and fine arts calendar in Ireland.
Lucian Freud – Ria, Naked Portrait. Painted in 2006-2007. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £11,810,000
A seminal work by Lucian Freud – Ria, Naked Portrait – with an estimate of £10 million – £15 million is a highlight at Christie’s 20th/21st century evening sale in London on October 9 during Frieze Week. The painting is deeply rooted in the art historical tradition of the reclining female nude, drawing from a lineage that includes Giorgione, Titian, and Velázquez, and finds a modern culmination in Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), a work that Lucian Freud greatly admired.
The sitter, Ria Kirby, was an art handler whom Freud initially met at the Victoria & Albert Museum during his joint exhibition with Frank Auerbach in 2006. Ria went on to become one of his most significant sitters during the final decade of his life, with sessions totalling an intense 2,400 hours over the course of 16 months. Ria, Naked Portrait was completed in 2007 and it is the only portrait of Ria the artist realised. The painting is offered at auction for the first time.
YANNY PETTERS – Fieldwork with Mainie and Albrecht
Dublin Gallery Weekend returns for its second year with an ambitious programme of contemporary art exhibitions November 7-10. Eleven leading commercial galleries will present exhibitions by Irish and international artists. Sean Rainbird, former director of the National Gallery of Ireland, will once again gather together a panel of national and global experts in a day-long conference of talks with the theme of realising the potential of the Irish visual arts sector.
Egyptian feminist Nil Yalter, who won a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2024 Venice Biennale is showing at Green On Red Gallery. One of Ireland’s most celebrated living sculptors, John Behan, will present new work in bronze at Solomon Gallery, while Irish contemporary artist Nevan Lahart presents new work at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery. Hillsboro Fine Art will present its first solo exhibition by the renowned Irish painter Eithne Jordan, while Kerlin Gallery presents the first exhibition in Ireland by Justin Fitzpatrick, a young Dubliner based in France and with a growing international reputation.
Fieldwork with Mainie and Albrecht, pictured here, is a new body of work by Yanny Petters primarily about wild Irish habitats at Olivier Cornet Gallery from October 6 to November 10.
