 |
 |
IF what you really really wanted somehow did not arrive then Victor Mee’s December decorative interiors sale on December 30 might provide the answer. A full size snooker table complete with lights, cue holder, cues, a set of six caricature paintings, snooker and billiard balls and a plaque with the rules of snooker are on offer. Lot 293A is estimated at 2,000-4,000. The catalogue for the sale is online.
UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Pieter Brueghel the Younger – The Census at Bethlehem c1604. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £5.2 million
The Census at Bethlehem by Pieter Brueghel the Younger places the Holy Family within a bustling Flemish winter landscape. Villagers queue to register for the census, children skate, throw snowballs and drag sledges across the frozen ground and drinkers gather around a makeshift tavern carved into an oak tree. The sacred is blended into the everyday as the Holy Family at the centre pass quietly through the crowd in a moving nod to the Nativity. The c1604 work exemplified Brueghel the Younger’s ability to capture the divine in the rhythms of ordinary life and is one of the largest known depictions of the subject.
The composition derives from a painting of the same name made in 1566 by the artist’s father, Pieter Brueghel the elder now in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. It is one of the most revered works of the Northern Renaissance. Brueghel the Younger was only a child at his father’s death and he devoted much of his career to preserving and re-interpreting these masterful inventions with his own acute observation of daily life and meticulous detail. The Nativity has always been a favourite subject for artists and this work sold for an above estimate £5,164,000 (€5,903,300) at Sotheby’s Old Masters and 19th century paintings auction in London this month.
Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer sold for $236.4 million
The recovery in the international art market which became apparent in the latter end of 2025 is driven by real art lovers, not speculators or peddlers of bitcoin looking to make a quick buck. The big November art sales in New York generated $2.2 billion (€1.89 billion) in just one week.
At Sotheby’s first auction at their new hq at the Breuer Building, previously the Whitney Museum, Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer made $236.4 million (€203 million), the second highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction as well as the most expensive painting sold this year. The first auction at their new home in New York brought in €706 million (€606,450), the highest total ever achieved by Sotheby’s for a one night auction.
Mark Rothko No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) made $62.1 million
Opening night sales at Christie’s in the same week totalled $689,795,000 (€592.45 million). Mark Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) made $62.1 million (€53.34 million) and Claude Monet’s Nymphéas made $45.4 million (€39 million).
No less than 12 paintings sold for more than $20 million each. This follows three years of layoffs at auction houses, closing galleries and sales which in 2024 were down by 12%. Aided by a booming stock market the November art sales in New York generated a 77% increase over the same sales last year.
Frida Kahlo – The Dream (The Bed) made a new world record for a female artist of $54.6 million
Prices for women artists were up. Frida Kahlo’s 1940 self portrait The Dream, the Bed sold for $54,660,000 (€46.9 million) at Sotheby’s to become the most expensive work by a female artist ever sold at auction. Kahlo surpassed the record for Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. I which made $44.4 million (€38.14 million) in 2014.
Earlier this year a painting by Marlene Dumas became the most expensive painting by a living female artist ever when it sold for $13.6 million (€11.68 million) at Christie’s in New York. This month the Louvre in Paris announced that the South African born Amsterdam based Dumas has completed a commission for a vast wall on the Porte des Lions atrium. Liasons consists of nine paintings of faces in canvases of a size that match the marble low reliefs that once hung on the wall. “My faces are a mixture of the past and the present. I cannot paint the horrors of the ongoing genocides of our times directly, but their shadows did affect the mood under which these faces were made” she said in an interview.
Marlene Dumas – Liasons at the Louvre.
The president director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars described Dumas as one of the greatest painters of our time. “When we were thinking about a work for the entrance to the Portes des Lions, which is both the access to the Gallery of the Five Continents and the Department of Paintings, she seemed the obvious choice: she defends and illustrates the medium of painting like few others, and her work is conceived as a space for bringing together different sensibilities and origins. That is exactly what we aimed for to do with this redesigned space. We are proud of the outcome of this magnificent project. Marlene Dumas’ work is a repertoire of ways of painting and drawing, as well as an invitation to confront our humanity” he said.
The art market always needs new buyers. Right now the omens are good. In October Christie’s achieved the highest total of £106.9 million (€121.93 million) for a Frieze week London evening sale in seven years, with world records for Paula Rego, Suzanne Valadon, Annie Morris and Esben Weile Kjaer. In Paris in October the Modernist and Surrealism and its Legacy sales brought in €89.7 million at Sotheby’s, up more than 50% on the same series in October 2024. These are among the trends that continued into the big November auctions. Another emerging trend is for art by women. More female artists are going to get more recognition as galleries strive to become less stale and white male and more inclusive of artists of any gender and ethnicity.
Gustav Klimt – Blumenwiese (Blooming Meadow) sold for $86.9 million in November
Sotheby’s announced projected consolidated sales of $7.0 billion for 2025, a 17% increase on 2024. Auction sales rose 26% year-over-year to $5.7 billion, with sales accelerating significantly in the second half of the year, up 59% versus the second half of 2024. Private sales reached $1.2 billion, down slightly from the prior year. Both the Global Fine Art and Luxury categories posted strong gains, with Global Fine Art sales increasing 15% to $4.3 billion and Luxury sales up 22% to $2.7 billion.
The company sold the most valuable collection of the year for the sixth time in the last seven years – the Leonard A. Lauder Collection – and sold seven of the year’s top ten auction works globally. The company inaugurated its new global headquarters at the Breuer with six white-glove (100% sold) sales totaling $1.17 billion, including the highest total for Modern art sold in one week at Sotheby’s ($843 million), the highest value work of art ever sold at Sotheby’s (Gustav Klimt’s Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer) for $236.4 million) and the largest Contemporary Day sale ever.
Sotheby’s executed its most valuable single-owner sale ever staged by Sotheby’s in London and in Europe with Pauline Karpidas: The London Collection realising a combined total of $137 million.
Landscape with Trees by Roderic O’Conor made €340,000 at hammer at de Veres.
The innate conservatism of the Irish art market was apparent at the big winter sales in Dublin where the dominant artists were the bankable Roderic O’Conor and Paul Henry. Yes the market is developing and making room for modern, postmodern and contemporary Irish artists. Yet while Francis Bacon and Sean Scully will cut it abroad it is the old reliables like Yeats, Orpen, Lavery and Osborne who dominate at home. Who will bring home the Bacon?
Paintings by Irish turn of the 20th century and later artists are in short supply. The best are in public and private collections from which they emerge only rarely. The home market must evolve. At times like this it sometimes seems as if it is being dragged kicking and screaming towards essential evolution. The greatest Irish artists of the last hundred years are still mostly overlooked at the highest levels of the auction market on the home front.
A landscape by Roderic O’Conor topped the bill at the big winter auctions of Irish art in Dublin. Paysage aux Arbres, Landscape with Trees (1890) made a hammer price of €340,000 at de Veres. The Great Sugar Loaf by Paul Henry (1929-30) was the top lot at Whyte’s making €235,000 at hammer. A Coastal Landscape with Galway Hookers by Paul Henry (1930’s) was the most expensive artwork at Adam’s, making a hammer price of €170,000. In October Francis Bacon’s Portrait of a Dwarf made £13.1 million (€14.88 million) at Sotheby’s in London.
Arnout Tholinx, Inspector (circa 1656) made £3.1 million in December, a new world record for a Rembrandt print.
With projected global sales of $6.2 billion in 2025 Christie’s is ending the year on a high note. Auction sales accounted for $4.7 billion (up 8%), private sales for $1.5 billion according to figures released today by Christie’s. No less than 17 works sold privately for more that $15 million and the top three works sold by Christie’s this year were sold privately.
“The energy has returned to the saleroom, online, and across the market. We’ve seen renewed confidence worldwide, reflected in these outstanding results. Our selling performance has remained consistently strong throughout the year: a solid first half followed by an even more competitive second half, delivering exceptional, market-leading outcomes for our clients” said Bonnie Brennan, Christie’s ceo.
The Americas amounted for 41% of sales, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) 36% and Asia Pacific for 23%.
EARLY 19TH CENTURY CORK GLASS COMPANY DECANTER. UPDATE: THIS MADE 360 AT HAMMER
This highly collectible c1800 glass decanter made by the Cork Glass Company is at Hegarty’s Christmas auction on December 17. There are three milled rings to the neck and the base is stamped Cork Glass Company, which operated from 1782-1818. The estimate is €200-€400. The sale offers a collection of silver among a wide variety of lots.
Sarah Walker (b. 1965) – BEARA MEADOW, 2018. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This mixed media on canvas by Sarah Walker is at Whyte’s Christmas art sale on the evening of December 15. The estimate is €1,000-€1,500. Artists in this seasonal sale of affordable art include Patrick Scott, Jack Yeats, Louis le Brocquy, Norah McGuinness, Markey Robinson, Pauline Bewick, Louise Mansfield, James Brohan, Desmond Carrick, Patrick Leonard, Elizabeth Rivers, John Shinnors, Banksy, Damien Hirst and Imogen Stuart. The catalogue is online and the auction is now on view in Dublin.
Repose by Michael Quane
The annual winter group show at Solomon Gallery in Dublin showcases a range of painting, sculpture and print by celebrated Irish artists. Among them are Michael Quane, Eilis O’Connell, Rowan Gillespie, Margo Banks, Corban Walker, Tom Climent, Comhghall Casey, Margaret Egan and Bernadette Madden. It continues until December 23.
Haystacks (c1930) by Sir William Rothenstein UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Haystacks by Sir William Rothenstein (€5,000-€7,000), probably painted around 1930 when he was principal at the Royal College of Art, will lead the At Home online sale at Adam’s in Dublin on December 17. Like his close associate Orpen, Rothenstein was an official war artist. This work was in the collection of the late Bruce Arnold whose Mirror to an Age published in 1991 is one of the the foremost biographies of Orpen.
Everyone, everywhere always needs something for the home. This sale offers no less than 496 lots of art, furniture, silver, delft, porcelain, lighting, brass, rugs, mirrors and a variety of collectibles. From Irish silver tea and coffee services to a 19th century gilt overmantle mirror, a pair of mahogany framed Georgian style humpback couches and a set of brass wall sconces to Oriental carpets, a c1913 Louis Vuitton travel trunk, a 20th century Spanish silver Egyptians and Nubians chess set and a pair of 19th century Italian decorative panels the auction delivers no shortage of lots to let the imagination soar.
One of a pair of Georgian style couches UPDATE: THE PAIR MADE 6,000 AT HAMMER
There are portrait miniatures, an Irish yew and elmwood Windsor armchair, a French giltwood pier mirror, a Georgian wingback armchair, a slope front walnut and satinwood inlaid bureau, a pair of Crown Derby porcelain peacocks, various selections of cutlery and silver condiments and a Chinese ebonised and gilt eight leaf dividing screen to choose from too.
One of the more expensively estimated lots is a set of four portrait prints after Sir John Lavery published c1922 by Hartnell and Co., Dublin. The subjects, with artists proof blindstamp to the lower margin and manuscript inked signature by Lavery, are Arthur Griffith, Cardinal Logue, Eamonn J Duggan and Archbishop Mannix. The estimate is €4,000-€6,000.
A Spanish Egyptians and Nubians chess set UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 4,200
The catalogue cover lot is a striking late 19th century oil on canvas of Breton Women in Woodland by an unknown artist. A fine Louis Quinz style ormolu and kingwood marquetry bureau plat with leather top, loop handled drawers complete with brass sabot feet to protect the lowest part of the leg is estimated at €800-€1,200. A Louis Quinz style ormolu mounted mahogany longcase clock has an estimate of €1,500-€2,500.
The estimate is just €300-€500 for a pair of sang de boeuf porcelain vases, fitted as lamps but without shades. Furniture represents good value and there is a selection of small tables and chairs. A Victorian walnut kidney shaped writing table (€600-€1,000), a Sheraton Revival inlaid satinwood side cabinet (€1,000-€2,000), a Georgian brass mounted side cabinet (€400-€600) and an Irish George III longcase clock with brass dial by Gregory Upington, Cork (€1,000-€2,000) offer an indication of the value to be found. The auction is now on view at Adam’s on St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin.
A Louis Quinz style bureau plat. UPDATE: THIS MADE 850 AT HAMMER.
