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This 18th century engraved Irish Map containing Plans of Drogheda, Derry, Kinsale Harbour, Charlemont Fort, City of Dublin, Coleraine, The Harbour of Cork, Galway, The City of Kilkenny, Carrickfergus, The City of Cork, Athlone, Waterford, Belfast, The Royal Fort of Duncannon and
Limerick comes up as Lot 321 at Fonsie Mealy’s sale of contents from Killoughter House, Ashford, Co. Wicklow online on May 18. It is estimated at €200-€300. UPDATE: THIS MADE 360 AT HAMMER
From Italian and Danish furniture in the 1950’s, ’60’s and ’70’s at de Veres to a crocquet set and an 18th century engraved Irish map with plans of Drogheda, Derry, Kinsale Harbour, Cork Harbour, Kilkenny, Cork, Waterford and Limerick at Fonsie Mealy’s there is plenty to choose from at online sales next week. The Design of our Times timed online sale at de Veres until May 18 offers classic 20th century design, period Irish Georgian and Victorian furniture and contemporary and traditional art. Among the artists featured are Donald Teskey, Bridget Riley, Mark Francis, Kenneth Webb, Erskine Nichol and Edwin Hayes. Renowned designers from Eileen Gray, le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe to Arne Jacobsen, Finn Juhl, Eero Saarinen, Ron Arad and Verner Panton all feature in a sale of nearly 400 lots.
Fine furniture, antiques, ceramics, paintings, outdoor and garden effects and wines will feature at Fonsie Mealy’s online sale of contents from Killoughter House, Ashford, Co. Wicklow on May 18. Among more than 600 lots are a pair of miniature pencil portraits of Philip Somerville of The Prairie, Schull, Co. Cork and his wife Henrietta Townsend, an 18th century engraved Irish map, a pair of minature portraits of Brisbane Warren of Union Hall and his wife Mary, daughter of Philip Somerville. Furniture includes a large 19th century French gilt console table once in the collection of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty.
A signed watercolour by Lin Fengmian will highlight Sheppards sale of Fortlands House, Charleville, Co. Cork – the home of Mary O’Connor – and other clients on May 19 and 20. Mary O’Connor is well known throughout Ireland as a lady who ran a successful antique business from Fortlands for many years. Lot 572, a watercolour portrait by Lin Fengmian (1900-1991), shows a young girl looking at her hat seated beside a vase of flowers. The face in this portrait by a pioneering artist known for blending Chinese and western styles recalls the style of Modigliani. While in Germany Lin became interested in the teachings of Schopenhauer, who conceived the notion of philosophical pessimism. Schopenhauer recognised certain similarities in Western and Eastern philosophy and suggested that aesthetic contemplation could be an escape from human suffering. This resonated deeply with Lin whose mother was sold when he was seven years old. He never saw her again. Back in China he fell foul of the Cultural Revolution and chose to destroy all his paintings to prevent them being used against him. He was imprisoned for four and a half years. His paintings are highly valued and very rare. This one is estimated at €80,000-€120,000.
The two day sale offers a selection of highly affordable lots from furniture and silver to ceramics and collectibles including swords and shillelaghs. There is a plentiful selection of jewellery including a diamond line bracelet (€10,000-€15,000) and Chinese and Oriental ceramics and bronzes, an Edwardian vanity set, modern bookshelves and a foxes head brass door knocker (€100-€150).Lot 209 is a 19th century French marquetry writing desk (€800-€1,200) and there is a similar estimate on a circular Regency dining table. A Victorian mahogany pedestal sideboard is estimated at a mere €300-€500, a Victorian dining table is estimated at €2,500-€3,500 and a Georgian breakfront bookcase at €2,000-€3,000. Given that Sheppards, more than any other Irish auction house, has been successful in selling precious Oriental objects back to collectors in China it seems likely that they will succeed in getting away lot 588 – a Chinese Qing white jade Imperial seal with an estimate of €80,000-€120,000. Of more local interest is a selection of cast iron garden pieces, staddle stones and benches. There is also some country furniture such as a famine chair, a brass bound noggin, a double fish oil light and a pair of elm benches. The auction takes place over four online sessions and the final session on Thursday afternoon will be entirely devoted to silver and plate.
THE 49 lots at Christie’s 20th century evening sale in New York last night achieved a total of $480,111,000. Picasso’s Femme assise pres d’une fenetre (Marie Therese) made $103,410,000, Waterloo Bridge, effet en brouillard by Claude Monet made $48,450,000, Untitled by Mark Rothko made $38,145,000, Femme dans un fauteuil by Picasso made $17,191,500, Le Pont du Trinquetaille by Vincent van Gogh made $37,400,000, Two Marilyns by Andy Warhol made $15,817,500, 10.2.81 by Zao Wou-Ki made $3,030,000, Composition No. 2 by Piet Mondrian made $26,122,500, Interior, Perfect Pitcher by Roy Lichtenstein made $21,500,000, La Flutiste by Marc Chagall made $1,590,000 and Scierie aux environs d Paris by Henri Rousseau (Le Douanier) made $1,050,000.
An original 1802 drawing of the Irish playwright and satirist Richard Brinsley Sheridan comes up at Whyte’s Eclectic Collector sale online on May 15 and 16. It is among the historical artefacts, manuscripts, books, maps, militaria, coins, banknotes, sporting and entertainment memorabilia, curios, tribal objects and rare whiskies on offer. Lot 35 is a theatrical candidate cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) with an original drawing featuring Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The long term owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane he is known for plays like School for Scandal, The Rival, the Duenna and A Trip to Scarborough. The cartoon is estimated at €800-€1,200.
An epic three-auction evening auction of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art realised a total of $596.8 million at Sotheby’s overnight. The live-streamed event featured in-room bidders in New York, telephone bidders in London, Hong Kong and New York, and online bidders from around the world, who all vied for remarkable artworks by exceptional artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Art by Warhol, Still, Richter and Diebenkorn lead the Marion Collection which brought in $157.2 million. Diebenkorn’s luminous Ocean Park #40, 1971 sold for $27,265,500, a new auction record for the California artist.
The Contemporary art sale made $218.3 million and was 100% sold. Basquiat’s Versus Medici 1982 made $50,820,000 and Twombly’s Untitled (Rome) 1970 made $41,628,000.
Lead by Monet’s Water Lillies the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale brought a total $221.3 million. The Monet made $70,353,000 and was the top lot of the evening.
In This Case by Jean Michel Basquiat sold for $93,105,000 at Christie’s inaugural livestreamed 20th/21st century sale in New York overnight. The 21st Century Evening sale totalled $210,471,500 and saw records set for 11 artists, including Rashid Johnson, Larva Labs, Nina Chanel Abney.
In a bidding battle with six international bidders, auctioneer Gemma Sudlow hammered down the Basquiat for $93,105,000. In This Case is one of only three monumentally sized skull paintings executed by the artist during his relatively short career. Depictions of human anatomy are prevalent throughout the Basquiat’s oeuvre but no subject is more powerful or sought after than the skull.
An exhibition of 20 works by Andy Warhol and Keith Haring will run at Gormleys in Dublin from May 22 to June 13. Key works include Warhol’s monochrome Mickey Mouse (FS II.265) from his 1981 Myths portfolio and his 1987 Moonwalk, which depicts Neil Armstrong’s photograph of Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr walking on the moon in 1969. The show will include Haring’s Medusa Head, one of the largest works he ever completed, measuring a huge 250 cm x 140 cm. and a series of his most iconic and sought after Pop Shop works
“Warhol and Haring had a unique friendship, with Warhol acting as a mentor to Haring,” said James Gormley. “This is a rare opportunity to see both artists work showcased together, and we have never had a substantial Haring exhibition in Ireland before.”
Imagine a material that is strong and non-toxic, highly versatile, that improves with age and is easy to recycle and that grows from the ground. Wood is all of these things so it is no surprise to find that a piece of antique furniture has a carbon footprint that is 16 times lower than something newly manufactured. A chair or a table built in 1760 or 1830 or 1900 has already provided long years of service. It might be in need of restoration but it can be made beautiful again and carry on for many years to come. If your aim is to reduce, re-use, re-cycle or re-purpose the auction room is filled with objects that can readily achieve all these essential goals. Without the dreadful necessity of trawling through hard to read labels in an attempt to find out what is eligible for the recycle bin.
There is a very wide selection of restored and unrestored pieces on offer online in Ireland right now. The auction calendar for the coming week is particularly busy. Hegarty’s in Bandon is on today; in Galway Dolan’s timed sale of art and antiques runs until Monday; on Tuesday James Adam will conduct a Mid Century Modern sale in Dublin and Gormley’s will offer Irish art online from Belfast; next Saturday there is a sale by Woodwards in Cork next and Sean Eacrett will conduct an appetising house contents auction in Ballybrittas, Co. Laois. Over next weekend there will be two day online sales of contents from a Killarney residence at O’Donovan’s, Newcastlewest and of contents from Dublin nightclubs by Victor Mee. So you can choose to buy anything from the Brunswick bar that used to adorn Dublin’s Cafe-en-Seine on Dawson St. and an historic Augsburg silver chalice to a Georgian inlaid serving table at Hegartys to a pair of Georgian brass bound plate buckets at Sean Eacrett.
Or how about the Earl of Cork? That is the steam locomotive built in 1903. An image of this engine is one of a collection of about 70 railway photographs in an album coming up at Dolan’s timed online sale. This sale of 360 lots includes everything from a bronze bull sculpture by John Behan to paintings by John Shinnors, Sean Keating, Arthur Maderson, Kenneth Webb, Jack Donovan and Susan Cronin. At Adams the focus is on 20th century design and contemporary art. That means artists like Mark Francis, Stephen McKenna, William McKeown, Mark Garry and Dorothy Cross, Italian and Danish design furniture and some highly collectible accessories such as a 1950 triennale floor lamp by Angelo Lelli. On offer at Woodwards is a set of Cork 11 bar chairs, a Regency teapoy, a Georgian walnut cellarette, a cylinder front desk, a Louis XV style bonheur du jour, a Georgian secretaire and a Georgian walnut bureau. All have provided years of service and will continue to do so in the future.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Head of a Bear will highlight the Exceptional Sale Christie’s in London on July 8. This penetrating study of a bear’s head is one of less than eight surviving drawings by Leonardo in private hands outside the British Royal Collection and the Devonshire Collections at Chatsworth. Measuring 2 ¾ x 2 ¾ inches (7 x 7 cm) it is executed in silverpoint on a pale pink-beige prepared paper, a technique which Leonardo was taught by his master Andrea del Verrocchio. The drawing will be on public exhibition at Christie’s in Rockefeller Centre in New York from May 8 and at Christie’s Hong Kong from May 20 – 25. It will be on view in London June from 1 – 6. It is expected to sell for £8,000,000-12,000,000.
The drawing’s distinguished history can be traced back to Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), the renowned British painter whose collection of old master drawings is considered among the greatest ever assembled. After Lawrence’s death in 1830, the drawing passed to his dealer (and major creditor) Samuel Woodburn, who sold it at Christie’s in 1860 for £2.50. In the first half of the twentieth century, the drawing was in the collection of another great British collector, Captain Norman Robert Colville, who also owned Head of a Muse by Raphael which sold for £29,161,250 at Christie’s in 2009.
Since its first public exhibition in 1937, it has also been shown at museums around the world including the London National Gallery’s Leonardo da Vinci exhibition in 2011-12, Louvre Abu Dhabi; Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum in 2018*.
The medium connects this sheet to three similar small-scale studies of animals, a study of two cats and a dog in the British Museum, its companion double-sided sheet with studies of a dog’s paws in the National Galleries of Scotland, and a study of a walking bear in the Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The studies can all be dated to the first half of the 1480’s.
The face of the bear is very close to the ermine in Leonardo’s portrait of Cecilia Gallerani or Lady with an Ermine now in the Krakow Museum.
