Great depth of bidding, numerous artist records, and palpable energy marked the opening night of Christie’s Marquee Week in New York, where the auction house achieved exceptional results for two premier sales: The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis and the 20th Century Evening Sale. In a packed, energetic saleroom at Rockefeller Center, and with active online bidders, the two sales achieved a total of $689,795,000 million, were 96% sold by lot, 97% sold by value.
The top lot of the evening was Mark Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) from the Weis collection. It work sold for $62,160,000 to a bidder on the phone after a fierce four-minute and 40-second bidding battle—also securing the highest online bid ever for a live auction at Christie’s. Another highlight of the collection was La Lecture, a portrait of Marie-Therese by Pablo Picasso which made $45,485,000.
The top lot from the 20th Century Evening sale was Claude Monet’s Nymphéas from the collection of Japan’s Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art. It made $45,485,000
Two 90 Gun Ships of the Line entering Cork Harbour by George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson at Morgan O’Driscoll’s sale on November 24 should arouse much interest. It adorned the cover of Peter Murray’s book Maritime Paintings of Cork written to coincide with a popular exhibition of the same name at the Port of Cork hq in 2005 and is one of Atkinson’s more ambitious works. With three masts, steam engines and single funnels these are an early manifestation of steam driven warships. As they enter the harbour following another steamship a frigate with sails unfurled is leaving. It is flying the Blue Peter, known as the departure flag. A cutter in the foreground is possibly the Cork pilot boat.
A 15th century Northern European altarpiece is among the highlights at Sheppards sale in Durrow on November 25 and 26. More than 1,200 lots of fine and decorative art, silver, furniture and sculpture drawn from Irish and international collections will be on offer including a Qing Dynasty silk wall hanging from Abbeyleix House. The altarpiece is estimated at €25,000-€45,000.
Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol at Art Source at the RDS.
The winter art sale season with a feast in store is kick started in Ireland this weekend by Art Source at the RDS. With more than 200 artists and galleries this is Ireland’s largest art fair with a huge selection of affordable art. Highlights include a portrait of Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol and work by Tracey Emin exhibited by Gormleys. Expected to draw more than 15,000 visitors the event features the Irish debut of Naples based Fonderia Artistica Ruocco.
This is a prelude to the season’s major sales of important Irish art. An online sale by Morgan O’Driscoll on November 24 with highlights by Yeats, O’Malley, Blackshaw and George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson will be followed by Dublin auctions by de Veres and Gormleys on November 25. Roderic O’Conor, William Leech, Paul Henry, Yeats and Mainie Jellett are at de Veres. Adams on November 26 offers art by Paul Henry, Yeats, Harry Clarke, Camille Souter, Gerard Dillon, Mary Swanzy and Hughie O’Donoghue. Among the highlights at Whyte’s on December 1 is work by John Luke, Paul Henry, Grace Henry, Frank McKelvey, Louis le Brocquy, Rowan Gillespie, Donald Teskey and John Behan.
Nature Morte by Roderic O’Conor at de Veres. UPDATE: THIS MADE 115,000 AT HAMMER
One of the more unusual items that Treasures Irish Art will bring to the Limerick fair today and tomorrow.
Collectors can expect the unexpected, and a lot of variety, at the National Antiques, Art and Vintage fair at Limerick Racecourse today and tomorrow (November 15 and 16) from 11 am on each day.
If you still haven’t found what you are looking for this is as good a place to start the search as any. More than 70 dealers from right around Ireland will be in attendance with everything from art, antique furniture and Persian rugs to jewellery, silver, ceramics, vintage fashion, banknotes, militaria and even a suit of armour.
Little wonder that this is one of the most popular events on Ireland’s annual antique calendar. Running now for 35 years the three to five times yearly Limerick fair continues to go from strength to strength.
A Clarice Cliff Bizarre Nasturtium pattern bowl from 1933 at Edwin Mercer’s stand.
Be inspired by some stylish ceramics at Brian Hurley’s stand or a pair of opal and emerald earrings at Edwin Mercer’s stand. This is where you will also find a full set of Beswick 757 flying swallows of a type that went out of production in 1973 and a Bizarre Nasturtium pattern Clarice Cliff bowl dating to 1933 in superb condition.
There are paintings, furniture and decorative objects at Country Mile Antiques while Joe Burns Foundry Antiques will offer metal wall sconces, candlesticks and lanterns. The Purple Onion Gallery will bring art along with some Havana cigars and a selection of French wines.
A selection of smaller furniture pieces from Greene’s Antiques.
A walk through the fair will bring you to no less than six coin, banknote and militaria dealers. There are gold Albert chains, silver chains, diamonds, precious and semi precious stones, books, Art Deco bronze figures. Eddie Moylan is among those who will offer a selection of jewellery items. Demand for lovely old furniture may not be as strong as it was once but it has not gone away, and there are some stylish choices for modern homes like a marquetry inlaid kidney shaped tray at Greenes.
The variety on offer always extends to vintage fashion and Eily Henry will bring a choice selection of hats, handbags and accessories. No one enjoys the thrill of the chase quite as much as an established collector of anything from Victorian hat pins to Limerick silver to branded porcelain to rare coins to whatever you are having yourself when they happen across a long sought after coveted piece.
Markets and fairs are enduringly popular throughout Europe and beyond. This – the biggest one in Ireland this year – is an opportunity to find something unusual and different, maybe even to get a new collecting habit underway.
Robert Hutchinson will bring a selection of coins, banknotes and medals.
This old mine cut diamond brooch owned by Emperor Napoleon I (c1810) sold for US $4.4 million at Sotheby’s Royal and Noble jewels sale in Geneva after a bidding battle that lasted nearly ten minutes. The estimate was $150,000-$250,000. Most likely created to adorn his bicorne hat on special occasions it centres on a large oval diamond of 13.04 carats surrounded by two rows of diamonds of varying shapes and sizes. In his haste to flee Waterloo Napoleon had to abandon some of his carriages when they got stuck on a muddy road a few miles from the battlefield. One of them contained precious personal belongings including weapons, medals, silverware, a hat and a jewellery box. The brooch was offered to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III on June 21, 1815, three days after the battle. It remained in the House of Hohenzollern for many years and has been part of different private collections since.
A gold pocket watch recovered from the body of one of the richest passengers on the Titanic is could make £1 million at auction at Aldridges in Wiltshire on November 22. Isidor Straus and his wife Ida were among the more than 1,500 people who died in the disaster in April 1912. An 18 carat gold Jules Jurgensen pocket watch was recovered from his body in the Atlantic. Ida’s body was never found. The Bavarian-born American businessman and politician was co-owner of Macy’s department store in New York.
The pocket watch stopped at 02:20, the moment the Titanic disappeared beneath the waves. It is believed to have been a gift from Ida to her husband in 1888 and is engraved with Straus’ initials. Returned to his family it was passed down through generations before Kenneth Hollister Straus, Isidor’s great-grandson, had the movement repaired and restored. It will be sold alongside a rare letter Ida wrote aboard the liner describing its luxury which was posted in Ireland at Queenstown (Cobh). The letter is estimated at £100,000-£150,000, the watch at £800,000-£1 million.
Dawn at the Forty Foot by Olivier Demé at Art Source
Art Source, Ireland’s largest art fair, is at the RDS from November 14-16. It offers a selection of affordable art and a range of pieces from artists like Tracey Emin and Andy Warhol. The event will feature the Irish debut of Fonderia Artistica Ruocco – a foundry from Naples, Italy. And spray-paint artist Hernán González and mural artist SOLUS will bring Dublin street art to the RDS.
A SMALL GILT ENAMEL CLOISONNE ‘TAOTIE’ MASK VASE AND COVER, MARKED QIANLONG
This mid Qing Dynasty gilt mask vase and cover made a hammer price of €24,000 at the James Adam sale of Fine Asian Art in Dublin today. Measuring just 8.8 centimetres high and weighing 87 grams it had been estimated at €1,500-€1,800 and the final hammer price is more than 13 times the top estimate. A taotie is an ancient Chinese mythological creature. A pair of 20th century carved cinnabar lacquer vases made €15,000 at hammer over a top estimate of €1,500 and a blue and white porcelain Korean storage jar made €16,000 over a top estimate of €5,000.
GERRIT DOU (LEIDEN 1613-1675) – The Flute Player UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £3,832,000 (€4,353,152).
With an estimate of £2-£3 million The Flute Player by Gerrit Dou will lead Christie’s Old Masters sale in London on December 2. Dou, like his teacher Rembrandt, was among the most successful Dutch artists of the seventeenth century, attracting patrons such as Cosimo III de’ Medici, and with works presented to Charles II of England. An early masterpiece from his relatively small and highly sought-after oeuvre, this vanitas – a still-life charged with symbolic meaning – alludes to music, learning and the brevity of life. Painted with microscopic detail and an enamel-like finish that conceals all trace of the brush, it exemplifies the extraordinary technical precision that made Dou one of the most acclaimed painters of his age. The picture has been in a celebrated English collection for 125 years, having belonged to William Proby, 5th Earl of Carysfort (1836–1909) at Elton Hall by 1900. It has remained in the family since.
Christie’s achieved the world auction record for Gerrit Dou in 2023 with A young woman holding a hare with a boy at a window, which achieved $7 million in theRothschild Masterpieces sale.
