 |
 |
Promiseful Journey by Tom Climent
The summer exhibition of painting, print, photography, sculpture and craft the at the Lavit Gallery in Cork runs until August 29. Participating artists include Tom Climent, Johnny Bugler, Debbie Dawson, Deirdre Frost, Etain Hickey, Victor Richardson, Tim Goulding, Damaris Lysaght, John Behan, Rachel Joynt, Jo Kelley and Billy Foley.
A marble torso of a Roman Emperor probably representing Augustus, Tiberius or Claudius at Sotheby’s.
A series of auctions from an amazing single owner collection including the most important Roman Imperial sculpture at auction in over a decade will kick off at Sotheby’s in New York in October. Assembled over decades it encompasses more than 900 works ranging from Roman Imperial marble, Old Master paintings, ancient Near East ceramics, Islamic court carpets, Royal French furniture, Impressionist masterworks and 20th century design.
Probably representing Augustus, Tiberius or Claudius the commanding Roman sculpture complete with upper body armour is estimated at $8-$12 million (€6.92-€10.38 million). In one of this collectors residences it stands in a room that holds Richard Avedon’s revered portrait of Marilyn Monroe. Four Savonnerie carpets commissioned by Louis XIV for the Grande Galerie of the Louvre lie beneath furniture that once belonged to Marie Antoinette. Art includes masterworks by Canaletto, Degas, Fragonard, Guardi and Picasso. Works from a private collection expected to realise more than $60 million (€51.9 million) will be displayed across four floors of Sotheby’s new hq at the Breuer building in New York from October 17-22. There will be four New York sales on October 21, 22 and 23, with further lots at the Modern evening auction in New York in November. Prized and precious objects from a mosaic of civilisations will continue to feature at 22 sales in New York and Paris into 2027.
A c1700 Louis XIV giltwood frame at Sotheby’s
UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE (1797-1858) – Ohashi bridge, sudden shower at Atake Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2026
Over the course of half a century, the American businessman Alan Medaugh assembled one of the largest and greatest collections of woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). Ohashi Atake no yudachi (Ohashi bridge, sudden shower at Atake) is a perfect example of what makes the Medaugh collection special. The image with rain falling across the page is iconic. The condition in full, unfaded color, is pristine. The impression is an early one, with the two boats beside the far shore still visible. The estimate is $50,000-$100,000.
A group of more than 600 sheets, many of the absolute greatest rarity, quality, and state of preservation focusing on the earliest impressions is to be auctioned at Christie’s in New York. The first of what promises to be a three-sale series of sales on September 17 will include more than 180 prints spanning the artist’s career. Hiroshige is especially famous for his compositions, atypical points of view, and his rich and striking use of colour. His prints helped usher in one of the greatest eras of Japanese printmaking and they changed Western art as well as they were hugely influential on 19th century European art.
Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Pauillac Wine Label 1990.
It is no secret that world renowned artist Francis Bacon was a lover of wine. In 1990 he created a formal dance about a wine-glass for the Mouton Rothschild 1990 label, distorting it to the curve of the label. A copy, still in its original white board tube with the name Chateau Mouton Rothschild and emblem in gilt along with an unused post card depicting the lithograph, will come up at a sale by Purcell Auctioneers in Birr on September 16. It is inscribed in French in homage to Bacon, who offered to Mouton one of his last works and signed both by Bacon and Baronne Philippine de Rothschild. Lot 373 is estimated at €800-€1,600.
Titled the W B Yeats sale and filled with collectible treasures the auction of 578 lots offers the libraries of the late Professor Warwick Gould and his wife Deirdre Toomey. Both prominent scholars they had a particular interest in the poetry, prose and drama of Yeats. The leading lot in the sale is a first (1726) edition of Gulliver’s Travels with an estimate of €8,000-€16,000.
Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) – La physique du sol. Courtesy Christie’s
It is a tribute to the Parisian taste of Jeanne Marie de Broglie that the furniture she collected in the 1970’s and ’80’s is of a type that makes vast sums of money in today’s market. Maybe the key is thinking outside the box. Princess Jeanne-Marie, the forward looking daughter of a duke who established Christie’s Paris office in 1968, did not go for the fashion of the time. Instead she followed the avant-garde.
Her private collection of over 150 lots, to be sold at Christie’s in Paris on September 30, reflects an expertise in art and friendships forged with artists. Close friends with gallery owner Daniel Cordier she was active in a visionary artistic circle where she met and became friends with Jean Dubuffet. Physique du sol (€200,000-€300,000) from her collection forms part of Dubuffet’s Texturologies series developed from the late 1950’s in which the artist uses a language of textures, layers and vibrations to transform painting into a physical and sensory experience.
Diego Giacometti (1902-1985) – Table basse ‘Berceau’.
Jeanne Marie de Broglie, who died last year aged 95, made an early acquisition of a Structure végétale chandelier by Claude Lalanne (€200,000-€300,000). The centrepiece of her collection is a unique piece by Diego Giacometti, a cradle table modelled on her dog Séraphim (€400,000-€600,000).
In an apartment emblematic of the elegant characteristics of great Parisian collections ceramics by Picasso, Charles X era candlesticks and an 18th century Limoges porcelain service sat alongside art by Marc Chagall, David Hockney, Dorothea Tanning, Léon Spilliaert, Henri Michaux, Miodrag Dado, Edgar Degas and Eugène Delacroix.
Claude Lalanne (1925-2019) – Lustre Structure végétale
Daughter of Gilles de Maillé de La Tour-Landry, Duke of Maillé and Anne-Marie Radziwill, Jeanne Marie became a princess through her marriage to Guy de Broglie in 1949. The aristocratic lineage is evident in several pieces in the collection like a diamond brooch in the shape of a Maltese Cross from the Radziwill family (€30,000-€50,000) and a portrait of her grandmother Dolly Radziwill by Adrian Désiré Étienne Drian. A service bears the cipher of her ancestor Princess Louise of Prussia.
For Francois Curiel, chairman of Christie’s Europe, she was a mentor. “After a year’s apprenticeship in London as a young specialist, I had the privilege of working alongside her in Paris in the 1970s. At that time, she was writing a crucial chapter in the history of the auction house as it expanded internationally. It was under Jeanne-Marie’s watchful eye that I embarked on this adventure, which has now lasted for over 50 years.”
Christie’s, now celebrating 260 years in business, describe this sale as a tribute auction to a major figure in the European art market who helped to shape the rapidly changing landscape of post war Europe.
Maltese Cross brooch set with diamonds.
White plaster portrait bust of Charles Stewart Parnell. UPDATE: THE CLOSING BID WAS €1,040
A plaster portrait bust of Charles Stewart Parnell is the leading lot at the sale by South Dublin Auctions on August 9. Created by artist Mary Grant in 1892 it is likely that this is a cast after the one in the National Portrait Gallery in London. The estimate is €3,000-€6,000. Among 1380 lots on offer are contents from a Limerick antique shop, a London penthouse, jewellery and small collectible pieces.
David Ffrench Le Roy – STILL LIFE CHEESE WINE & GRAPES. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR €1,400
This oil on board by David Ffrench le Roy is at an online auction of Irish paintings by Adams Blackrock which runs until August 12. Lot 33 is estimated at €500-€600 in a sale of 421 lots. Online sales of jewellery and watches and of antiques and furniture are running concurrently at Adams Blackrock. The furniture sale includes this canteen of assorted silver flatware, with an estimate of €1,000-€1,200. All catalogues are online.
CANTEEN OF ASSORTED SILVER FLATWARE. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR €2,834
Nude by the Sea is the title of this arresting 1941 oil on canvas by Ireland’s pioneering abstract and modernist artist Mainie Jellett (1897-1944). With its intensity and flowing background it must have seemed beyond futuristic to most Irish viewers in 1941. It was shown at the Jellett exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art from December 1991 to March 1992 and at a retrospective of the artist at the Municipal Gallery in Dublin in 1962. The painting was catalogued for that show as Composition with Figure. Nude by the Sea is among a selection of works already consigned to Whyte’s next sale of Important Irish Art, which is to take place on September 28. Not surprisingly Whyte’s anticipate significant interest in this bright and highly polished work by an important figure in Irish art history.
Claude Monet – Bord des falaises à Pourville, c1882, estimated at €11–15 million. © Christie’s Images Limited 2026.
Claude Monet died in 1926 and to mark the centenary Christie’s has just announced the auction of Bord des falaises à Pourville estimated at €11–15 million. Encouraged by his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, Monet travelled to Pourville in Normandy in 1882 for what would become one of the most prolific periods of his career. Part of a landmark series within the artist’s oeuvre, Bord des falaises à Pourville is further distinguished by its exceptional provenance, having come directly from Paul Durand-Ruel’s personal collection. The painting will highlight of Christie’s sale of the Durand-Ruel Collection in Paris next October 22 during Art Basel Paris week.
The Bayeux Tapestry. © La Fabrique de patrimoines en Normandie, Antoine Cazin
If you thought that getting tickets for Glastonbury was difficult then try getting to see one of the wonders of the medieval world. The 70 metre long Bayeux Tapestry, depicting events leading up to the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, is the hottest ticket in London town. The tapestry has returned to England for the first time since it was made nearly 1,000 years ago. Historians believe it was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, half brother to William the Conqueror.
Stitched in wool on linen fabric – so not actually a tapestry – it was made by women in England, possibly nuns, before being taken across the Channel. It offers a vision of life in 11th century England before and after the Conquest, from castles, warfare and ships to clothing, food and furniture. It will be on display laid flat and in one long line at the British Museum from next September until July 2027. Demand has been unprecedented with almost 100,000 tickets sold on the first day. Around 7.5 million visitors are expected to see it in England, with tickets being released in phases by the British Museum.
Bayeux Tapestry
