PAIR 19TH-CENTURY FRENCH ORMOLU-MOUNTED KINGWOOD & MARQUETRY SIDE TABLES. UPDATE: THESE WERE UNSOLD
Viewing gets underway in Durrow today for the re-scheduled Paradigms and the Unexpected auction by Sheppards from March 18-20. The auction was to have been held this week but it was postponed after the unexpected death of Sheppards director Philip Sheppard. Pictured here is lot 331, a pair of 19th century French side tables. They are estimated at €4,000-€6,000. More than 1700 lots will come under the hammer and the catalogue is online.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Spanish – Blue Dove with Flowers. UPDATE: THIS MADE 300 AT HAMMER
This lithograph by Picasso is lot 89 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall online art auction which finishes this evening. Signed on the plate and numbered 605/1000 it is after a 1961 drawing. The litho was published by SPADEM in 1983 on watermarked Arches paper. The estimate is €300-€500.
A rare Youghal Art Metal Workers mirror, Killarney furniture and a treen collection
The enduring popularity of antique fairs lies in discoveries waiting to be made. The St. Patrick’s Weekend Fair at Limerick Racecourse on March 15 and 16 is no exception. Here you will find everything from a French Restauration chest of drawers in flame mahogany and a George I sugar bowl made by George Newenham in Cork c1720 to Killarney furniture and a rare Youghal Art Metal Workers mirror.
Shortly after the Cork International Exhibition of 1902, where Thomas Sparks of the Keswick School of Industrial Arts had given demonstrations, skilled local dockyard workers and coppersmiths aided by Sparks formed the Youghal art group in 1904. A number of their large mirrors were purchased by the Abbey Theatre. Ink Jar antiques and gallery from Donegal will bring a circular Youghal mirror to the Limerick Fair along with Killarney wood pieces and a collection of treen.
Cork silver dating back more than 300 years is not something you come across every day so there will be significant interest in the Newenham sugar bowl at Weldons stand. They will also showcase four Irish George II candlesticks by Robert Calderwood, Dublin c1745. Ashbrook Antiques of Roscrea will bring French furniture. With dealers from right around the country this packed to rafters fair will offer everything from art and antique furniture to porcelain, jewellery, vintage fashion, Irish coins and banknotes, Oriental rugs and all sorts of collectibles.
Dan Flavin (1933 – 1996) – untitled (for Fredericka and Ian) 3
An exhibition dedicated to the work of Dan Flavin (1933-1996), one of the leading exponents of minimalism and a pioneer of installation art, runs at Ordovas at Saville Row in London until April 25. The chronological show begins with an installation entitled four red horizontals (to Sonia). It was conceived in 1963, the pivotal year when Flavin first started using his signature fluorescent light bulbs, turning an everyday object into a work of art and exploring the ways in which light sculpts space. At Ordovas there is work from the 1960’s, ’70’s and ’80’s.
Antique Mahal rug from west Persia from the Peter Linden collection at Adams. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,600 AT HAMMER
With no less than three online sales next week James Adam will offer a selection to suit many tastes. Emeralds, diamonds, topaz, sapphires, pearls, gold, coral, lapis lazuli and aquamarine will feature in various settings at The Jewellery Box sale of 275 lots from 11 am on March 11.
The Peter Linden rug collection comes under the hammer on Wednesday. Sadly Ireland’s leading specialist in antique carpets, kilims, rugs and tapestries, who established his business here in 1980, died in 2024. His collection will be headed by a semi-antique Kashan carpet with an estimate of €5,000-€8,000. Estimates at the timed online sale which starts to close at 2 pm on March 12 are from €50 up
An online picture sale at James Adam next Thursday will include works from the studio of Fergus O’Ryan along with artists like Rowland Hill, Cathy Carman, William Conor, Harry Kernoff, Anne Yeats, Basil Blackshaw, Barbara Warren, Muriel Brandt and Tony O’Malley. All catalogues are online and there is viewing across the weekend and next week at Adams, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin.
The Scarecrow by Fergus O’Ryan (1911-1989). UPDATE: THIS MADE 110 AT HAMMER
A pair of George III Waterford mirrors. UPDATE: THESE MADE 9,000 AT HAMMER
A pair of George III Waterford oval mirrors of a type prized by collectors with alternating blue and clear crystal faceted cabochons will feature three days of sales at Sheppards in Durrow from March 18-20. True collectors items like this don’t come cheap and the estimate is €15,000-€25,000.
Viewing for the Paradigms and the Unexpected sale gets underway in Durrow on March 15. The most expensively estimated of over 1700 lots is a south Dublin collection of luxury watches headed by a recently serviced Rolex day date president with square cut diamonds representing the hour marks (€25,000-€35,000). There is a similar estimate on a Franck Muller conquistador watch. Both of these will come up on Wednesday, the mirrors on Tuesday afternoon.
The most expensive paintings in the sale, with top estimates of €15,000, are Sea Green Mood by Nano Reid, Boats in the Bay, Greatmans Bay, Galway by Charles Lamb and Bathers by the Pier, Waterfoot, Antrim by James Humbert Craig. Among the many artists represented are Sean Keating, John Behan, William Crozier, Gerard Dillon, Anthony Scott, Grace Henry, Kenneth Webb, Mainie Jellett, Percy French and there is a complete set of Malton Views of Dublin.
A private collection of guitars will include Canadian rocker Fred (C.F.) Turner’s 1968 Fender Precision green bass guitar (€5,000-€8,000). Other collectibles include a 1999 Late Late Show music script signed by Gay Byrne on his last show (€1,500-€2,500) and an Everlast boxing glove signed by Mohammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes, Ken Norton, Riddick Bowe, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and George Foreman (€4,000-€6,000) and selections of Chinese and Japanese ceramics.
Among a large selection of furniture is a Black Forest hat and coat tree, a Killarney work table, Dublin furniture by Hicks, Art Deco mirrored pieces, a signed Maple and Co. kneehole desk, a 17th century Tibetan monastery trunk and an Irish Vernacular tree dugout cabinet.
Black Forest hat and coat tree. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
JEWELLERY GROUP LOT. UPDATE: THIS LOT MADE 1,000 AT HAMMER
This group is lot 33 at Adams Jewellery Box timed online sale which runs until March 11. It comprises an 18 ct gold ring, a smokey quartz fob seal pendant, a 9 ct gold Claddagh ring, a gold bracelet, a shell cameo bracelet, a gold ring, an emerald and diamond ring, a swivel fob pendant and a nine carat gold chain. The estimate is €700-900. The auction is on view in Dublin from today and the catalogue is online.
Irish 19th Century mahogany Bureau stamped J.Kerr & Co., No. 68931. UPDATE: THIS MADE 9,500 AT HAMMER
THIS Irish bureau with an estimate of €1,000-€1,500 sold for a hammer price of €9,500 at Fonsie Mealy’s sale in Castlecomer today. The high price achieved was driven by a celebrity connection to Sir Winston Churchill. By family tradition it was gifted by Churchill to Sir Bindon Blood. Churchill had served under Blood at the North West Frontier in 1897 and dedicated his first non-fiction book – The Story of the Malakand Field Force – to him.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 19, 2025).
Louis Le Brocquy (1916-2012) – Playboy of the Western World. UPDATE: THESE MADE 850 AT HAMMER
This set of six lithographs by Louis le Brocquy of The Playboy of the Western World comes up as lot 18 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current off the wall online art auction. Framed as one they are estimated at €700-€1,000. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World is one of a number of plays produced during the period of the Anglo-Irish revival which has as a theme the rejection by the people of a deliverer from oppression. It has been described as the most vigorous dialogue written for the stage since Shakespeare. The play met with a storm of protest culminating in the Playboy Riots which took place in Dublin in 1908 and received similar treatment in the theatres of New York and Philadelphia. The auction runs until March 10 and the catalogue is online.
Maria van Oosterwijck (1630-1693) – Vanitas Still Life, c. 1690
This work by Maria van Oosterwijck, one of the most important Dutch women painters of the 17th century, is now on display in the Gallery of Honour at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Renowned for her flower still lifes the religious connotations of this painting make it one of the artist’s most deeply personal works. For Van Oosterwijck, the still life was a testament to her faith. Acquired in 2023 it has since been examined and restored.
Paintings by Maria van Oosterwijck are exceptionally rare because of the limited body of work that she left to posterity. Only some 30 works by the artist have survived to the present day, and this acquisition means that two are now in Dutch ownership. The general director of the Rijksmuseum Taco Dibbits said: “We are delighted that, with this painting, we can offer her the place of honour that she deserves.”
With Judith Leyster and Rachel Ruysch, Maria van Oosterwijck was one of the few 17th-century Dutch artists to achieve international fame during her lifetime. Her impressive roster of clients included the ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV of France, King Jan III Sobieski of Poland, Cosimo III de’ Medici of Tuscany, and Emperor Leopold of Austria.
