Titian’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt sold for a record-breaking £17.6 million in July
Christie’s is projecting $5.7 billion in global sales in 2024, down 6% on $6.1 billion in 2023. Auction sales at $4.2 billion were down by 16% ($5 billion in 2023) and private sales at $1.5 billion were up by 41%. A total of 81% of bids were placed online compared with 78% the previous year. A company statement said that in 2024 Christie’s experienced a strengthening of auction sales as the year progressed, together with outstanding results for private sales throughout.
“Our key performance indicators of overall sell through rate of 86%, hammer vs. low estimate index at 112% and bidders per lot of 3.7 all showed growth year over year, indicating that our strategy and focus resonated with sellers and buyers. We sold the most valuable work of the year René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières for $121.2 million from the Mica Ertegun collection; the only lot to sell for over $100 million globally. Christie’s also sold the most valuable jewel of the year, The Eden Rose, for $13.4 million in New York in June.
The America’s contrubuted around 41% to global sales, Europe, the Middle East and Africa contributed around 32%.
FRIDAY FARE BY NANO REID SOLD FOR £57,600 AT SOTHEBYS MODERN BRITISH AND IRISH SALE IN LONDON IN NOVEMBER
Sotheby’s is to close its Irish office at the end of February as part of an international cost cutting exercise. The company plans to continue to serve its Irish clients in ways that are as yet unannounced. The Irish office opened first in 1978 and Arabella Bishop has been Irish Director for the past 25 years.
Trade restrictions that followed Britain’s departure from the EU created extra expense and red tape for the London auctioneers when it came to sourcing works here for sale in London. Sotheby’s is suffering internationally from a decline in auction sales, about 70 staff in London have recently been let go, offices in Moscow and Bangkok have been closed and presence in other cities has been reduced. Layoffs globally account for about six per cent of the workforce. Sotheby’s has faced increasing competition from online platforms and niche marketplaces that cater to a new generation of collectors. This cost-cutting follows the taking of a minority stake in the company, owned by French Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi, by an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, in a deal valued at $1bn.
The earliest surviving inscribed tablet of the Ten Commandments, incised during the late Roman-Byzantine era, comes up at Sotheby’s in New York on December 18. The only complete example of a ten commandments tablet from this era – 300-800 AD – is estimated at $1 million – $2 million. The white marble table is chisel-inscribed with the Mosaic Ten Commandments in their Israelite Samaritan version, 20 lines in a Paleo-Hebrew script, each line containing between eleven and fifteen characters, with margins of about 10 cm on either side; the letters have a width of between one and 2 cm and words are separated from one another with one or two dots; a few letters are confused for each other (especially ? and ?) and a few characters on the right side of the first two lines are effaced and re-inscribed.
Weighing 115 pounds and measuring approximately two feet in height, it is now called the Yavne Tablet after the city on the coastal plain of the Land of Israel near where it was?rediscovered more than a century ago. This monumental, incised marble slab was serendipitously uncovered during excavations for a railroad track running through the Land of Israel to Egypt. The significance of the discovery went unrecognised for many decades, and for thirty years it served as a paving stone in a local home.
Eilis O’Connell – Sprawl (2021) – bronze, edition of five.
Eilis O’Connell, Orla de Bri, Carol Hodder, Michael Quane, Melissa O’Donnell, Tom Climent, Comhghall Casey, Margaret Egan and Bridget Flinn are among the artists who feature at the Winter Group Show at the Solomon Gallery in Dublin. Paintings, sculpture and prints are on display and the show continues until December 22.
Fresh from the success of a Fine Jewellery sale earlier this month where the top lot, a Bulgari ruby and diamond dress ring, made €40,000, double the top estimate, the Adams jewellery box online only sale runs until December 17. The catalogue features 370 lots. A group of three enamel brooches each designed as a bow, an emerald and diamond torque necklace, a ruby and diamond bracelet and a gold and diamond brooch designed as a ballerina are all included.
UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD. The top lot was a synthetic sapphire and diamond bracelet which made €7,500 at hammer.
The Place of Writing by Seamus Heaney from the collection of Seamus Deane UPDATE: THIS MADE 700 AT HAMMER
There are treasures, gifts, once off items and many desirable rarities among a cornucopia of good things at the timed online At Home auction on view this weekend at James Adam in Dublin.
Literary and theatre types will be interested in a collection of books from Seamus Deane, classmate and close friend of Seamus Heaney. Together with Heaney, Brian Friel, Stephen Rea, Tom Paulin and David Hammond, Deane was a founding director of the Field Day Theatre Company, which began in Derry 1980 as a cultural and intellectual response to the political crisis in Northern Ireland. Friel’s critically acclaimed Translations was the first of many Field Day plays to stage at Derry’s Guildhall before travelling throughout Ireland and the world.
Much of the collection, which makes up the first 41 lots, comprises first edition signed copies of Seamus Heaney works at reasonable estimates.
Lot 54 is a 1938 presentation copy of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, one of only 200 printed. The estimate is €2,000-€3,000.
A black painted timber two door cabinet UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,100 AT HAMMER
The catalogue cover lot is a distressed black painted timber two door cabinet with outset cornice and glazed doors. It would work well in a contemporary setting and the estimate is just €500-€800. Furniture highlights include a mahogany and brass bound military chest (€1,800-€2,200), a pair of Howard style armchairs (€1,000-€1,500), a pair of compact leather upholstered armchairs (€2,500-€3,000), a club fender (€2,000-€3,000) and a c1820 secretaire bookcase (€2,000-€3,000).
A good selection of quality antique furniture comes in at estimates of under €1,000.
T’is the season and the Christmassy feel to this sale is boosted by lots like a collection of 13 vintage jigsaw puzzles (€150-€250), various silver sauce boats, a set of five green cylindrical glasses, dinner and tea services, Meissen parrots, Irish cut glass 19th century decanters, German figural candelabra, toleware jardinieres and even a cased croquet set for when the evenings get longer.
There is a good selection of silver and no doubt collectors will be taken by a c1706 Queen Anne silver two handled porringer (€800-€1,200).
A Chinese lacquer pagoda shrine. UPDATE: THIS MADE 340 AT HAMMER
Curiosities like a 19th century timber spoon rack, a Chinese lacquer pagoda shrine and a 19th century Indian olive glass bottle diorama add interest to a catalogue with nearly 500 lots There is no shortage of glassware for those hell bent on stylish entertaining during this festive season.
No At Home auction would be complete without art and this one offers beautiful nautical paintings by Edwin Hayes, Peter Ellenshaw and Daniel Sherrin. This timed online sale gets underway at 11 am next Wednesday. It is on view at Adams from 1 pm to 5 pm today and tomorrow and from 10 am to 5 pm on Monday.
An early Victorian flame mahogany sofa table. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
LATE LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED JAPANESE LACQUER AND EBONY COMMODE BY CLAUDE-CHARLES SAUNIER, c1765, THE JAPANESE LACQUER 17TH CENTURY
This Louis XV commode, almost certainly supplied to the duchesse de Mazarin for the château de Chilly-Mazarin, made $819,000 at Christie’s in New York. It was the top lot at the L’Art du Luxe: Masterpieces of French Furniture sales which realised $9.7 million. Other leading results included a Louis XV ormolu-mounted bois satine and Chinese lacquer bureau plat by Joseph Baumhauer, one of only two of its type known to exist, which made $604,800; a late Louis XV ormolu-mounted amaranth, tulipwood and parquetry commode supplied to the court banker Micault d’Harvelay in 1774, which made $693,000 and a rare pair of late Louis XV consoles which made $415,000. Bids came from around the globe including Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East, and almost 10 percent of bidders and buyers were new to the category.
A first edition from 1710 of Irish philosopher George Berkeley’s A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge sold for a hammer price of €13,000 at the opening day of Fonsie Mealy’s Christmas Rare Book and Collectors sale in Castlecomer today. The scarce volume contained in a worn cover had been estimated at €3,000-€4,000. The love letters of the poet Thomas Davis and a complete set of Cuala Press broadsides each made €6,500, a copy of The Aran Island signed by Synge and Yeats made €5,400 and a copy of Finnegan’s Wake signed by James Joyce made €3,600. The auction continues on December 12.
LOUISE KENNEDY – A CHANDELIER. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,700 AT HAMMER
This art deco stye cut crystal chandelier by Louise Kennedy for Tipperary Crystal is at de Veres Christmas Crackers auction which runs until December 12. It is tiered form with cut glass lustres and the estimate is €2,000-€4,000. The online only auction offers a selection ranging from Irish art to design furniture including art by Patrick Scott, Richard Kingston and Mark O’Neill and design pieces by Gianfranco Frattini, Verner Panton, Antonio Citterio, Fase and others. The catalogue is online.
Peter Curling – Around the Turn. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $31,200
This oil on canvas by the Irish artist Peter Curling is a feature lot at Sotheby’s Arcade sale in New York with an estimate of $15,000-$20,000. The Tipperary based Waterford born artist is particularly noted for his action paintings of horses, of which this work is a fine example, and he has shown in Saratoga and Kentucky. The Arcade sale, with 96 lots in total, runs from December 10-19.
