A pair of bird’s eye maple hall stands. UPDATE: THIS LOT WAS UNSOLD
An unusual pair of bird’s eye maple ormolu mounted mirrored hall stands with grey marble tops will feature at Marshs online only auction in Cork on July 5. The sale will offer a selection of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian furniture, art and collectibles like Waterford Crystal, silver, clocks, rugs and books.
A large bronze sculpture of a lady signed Ross is estimated at €1,200-€1,500 and a Georgian four door breakfront bookcase has an estimate of €1,000-€1,200. Among other furniture lots are a Victorian rosewood davenport, a Regency satinwood and marquetry occasional table, a Georgian three tier waterfall bookshelf and a Georgian Canterbury.
Irish Georgian bureau bookcase. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,500 AT HAMMER
Self Portrait – Baked Bean Boy by Paul Hewson (Bono) at Whyte’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,050 AT HAMMER
The Irish art market reflects global trends and right now these trends are particularly favourable to online sales of the type that Whyte’s will hold on June 30 and Morgan O’Driscoll on July 1.
Auctions of affordable art by popular Irish and international artists are where the market is at. The value of art sold last year went down but the number of transactions grew because of greater activity at lower levels. Even as the market remains in a state of flux the interest in acquiring art is on the up. In Ireland and around the world more and more people are prepared to buy online at lower prices even as global uncertainty contributes to a situation where fewer records are being broken at the top.
Celebrity sells and Whyte’s will have offerings by Bono (a self portrait though not one that you recognise him in) and Damien Hirst among their offerings. The screenprint by Bono – Self Portrait – Baked Bean Boy – is estimated at just €300-€400. Heart Spin, the acrylic by Damien Hirst, is among the most expensive offerings in the auction with an estimate of €2,500-€3,500.
Seaside Day by Brian MacMahon at Morgan O’Driscoll. UPDATE: THIS MADE 850 AT HAMMER
Among the art at the Morgan O’Driscoll sale is a poster by Tracey Emin and a preparatory design by Mainie Jellett for The Stations of the Cross. The latter artist is currently on show at the National Gallery where The Art of Friendship exhibition featuring paintings, stained glass and preparatory drawings by Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone continues until August 10.
With estimates from €80 and €100 up at both Whyte’s and Morgan O’Driscoll there should be more than enough to tempt newcomers to the exciting world of Irish art auctions. They will join a growing band of seasoned collectors.
One of a set of six prints from the Irish animal series by Pauline Bewick at Whyte’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,200 AT HAMMER
Choices from 286 lots at Whytes include work by Gerard Byrne, Cecil Maguire, Desmond Carrick, Susan Webb, Peter Curling, Banksy, Pauline Bewick, John B Yeats, Tom Nisbet, Harry Kernoff and Joseph Sloan.
The were will be 430 lots at Morgan O’Driscoll’s sale with work by Graham Knuttel, Donald Teskey, Brian MacMahon, Gretta O’Brien, Ken Hamilton, Bridget Flannery, Ivan Sutton, Annemarie Bourke, Louis le Brocquy, Arthur Armstrong, Maria Simonds-Gooding and Maurice Desmond.
On Watch by Graham Knuttel at Morgan O’Driscoll. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,500 AT HAMMER
Vagabond Antiques UK have brought this rare Italian Baroque cassettone to the Treasure House fair in London.
Treasure House, the flagship London summer fair, is in full swing this weekend at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea. Some of the world’s leading antique dealers are in attendance with a spectacular selection of furniture, silver, decorative arts and jewellery, boasting extraordinary provenance and the aura of the greatest makers of their time. This is the 3rd edition of a fair which is from a long tradition of summer art fairs in London. The 2025 edition marks the 91st anniversary of the establishment of the Antique Dealers’ Fair, later the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair, followed in 2010 by Masterpiece.
Gretta O’Brien (1933-2017) – Autumn Reflection 1983. UPDATE: THIS MADE 660 AT HAMMER
This oil on canvas by Gretta O’Brien is lot 108 at Whyte’s summer online art auction which runs until June 30. The sale offers an array of affordable art from Ireland and around the world among 284 lots on offer. Autumn Reflection is estimated at just €700-900.
Jack B. Yeats (1871 – 1957) – Singing ‘The Dark Rosaleen’, Croke Park (1921). Purchased, 2024, with special support from the Government of Ireland and a generous contribution from a private donor
The National Gallery of Ireland has acquired Jack B. Yeats’s iconic painting Singing ‘The Dark Rosaleen’, Croke Park (1921). It was purchased in 2024, with special support from the Government of Ireland and a generous contribution from a private donor and is now on display. As one of Yeats’s few overtly political works, this painting stands as a deeply personal response from a keenly sensitive individual to a seismic moment in Irish history. It is unclear if the scene represents a specific moment Yeats observed, an amalgamation of separate sketches, or a product of his imagination. Though the work does not explicitly reference the violent events at Croke Park on 21 November 1920, known as Bloody Sunday, its title, setting, and sombre tone evoke the tragedy and its consequences.
On that day, during a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary, Auxiliaries (a paramilitary unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary) opened fire on spectators, killing 14 civilians, including Tipperary footballer Michael Hogan, and injuring 60 others. Sketchbooks in the Gallery’s Yeats archive contain multiple depictions of hurling matches at Croke Park indicate Yeats’s familiarity with the setting. When first exhibited in 1921 The Freeman’s Journal remarked on the “surge of patriotic emotion that the most dismal surroundings cannot repress.” It is a lament in the aftermath of the episode rather than a depiction of the violence itself.
The painting was stolen in the Dunsany Castle art robbery in 1990, subsequently recovered and returned to the Plunkett family in 1995. The same year the late art collector Sheila Plunkett, Lady Dunsany, sold ‘Singing the Dark Rosaleen – Croke Park’ at Sothebys for £500,000, when it was bought by Ben Dunne. The Mary and Ben Dunne Collection was sold by Gormley’s in 2022.
Donald Teskey RHA (b.1956) – Kerry Seascape, lithograph – number 36 from an edition of 100. UPDATE: THIS MADE €950 AT HAMMER
Fresh from the success of an online auction on June 23 where Muingelly V (2023), and oil on canvas by Donald Teskey made a hammer price of €11,000, Morgan O’Driscoll will offer a lithograph by the same artist in his Irish art online auction which runs until July 1. The limited edition Kerry Seascape lithograph pictured here is estimated at just €400-600. The off the wall sale, with over 400 lots of affordable art, will be on view in Skibbereen on June 27 and 30 and on July 1. Desire of the Moon (1990) by William Crozier was the top lot at the June 23 auction. It made €17,000 at hammer. A unique bronze Mayo Famine Ship by John Behan made €6,800.
Louis le Brocquy – Painting Figure. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This 1959 work by Louis le Brocquy is at Sotheby’s Modern British and Irish art sale in London on June 26 with an estimate of £30,000-50,000. It was acquired by the present owner at the Esther Robles Gallery in Los Angeles. The auction features important works by British and Irish artists and those working in the UK across the 20th century, including the St Ives Modernists, Scottish Colourists, Bloomsbury, Camden Town, Vorticist and Post-War groups, and it will span paintings, drawings, sculptures and ceramics. Among the Irish artists featured are Sir John Lavery, William Scott and Jack Coulter.
GEORGE II IRISH – LIMERICK – SILVER CREAM EWER BY JOSEPH JOHNS. UPDATE: THIS MADE 4,600 AT HAMMER
A ver rare c1745 Limerick silver cream ewer by Joseph Johns is among the lots at Hegarty’s online sale in Bandon on June 26. This intricate piece has a clear hallmark to left of the engraved cartouche. Joseph Johns was the most prolific of Limerick’s goldsmiths and became a freeman of Limerick in 1731. He lived and worked in Main Street, Englishtown (now Mary Street), opposite Fanning’s Castle. The ewer is estimated at €5,200-6,200.
Edwardian roll top desk. UPDATE: THIS MADE 180 AT HAMMER
A hot Georgian wine cooler or a cool Edwardian desk? The choice is yours at Woodwards online summer auction in Cork on June 28. Well positioned each of these stylish antique pieces can add grace to most homes. Estimated respectively at €600-€800 and €400-€600 they are not particularly expensive and would have cost more 20 years ago.
Such is the sad state of the market for antique furniture. The happy news (if that is not a contradiction in terms right now) is that furniture like this does offer spectacular value. The sale at Woodwards is rich in such pieces like a Regency crossbanded tea table (€400-€600), a d-end dining table (€200-€400), a parquetry inlaid hall table (€200-€400), a Victorian walnut davenport (€300-€500), a William IV card table (€250-€400) and a Regency Pembroke table (€300-€600). Among other offerings are a large Persian rug (€500-€800), a five piece cast iron patio suite (€800-€1,200), a gilt console mirror with marble table top (€800-€1,200) and art including Vanity Fair Spy prints and Victorian silhouettes and collectibles.
Georgian wine cooler UPDATE: THIS MADE 380 AT HAMMER
