Robert Fagan – Emma Hamilton as a Bacchante. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This portrait of Lady Hamilton by the Irish artist Robert Fagan (1761-1816) comes up at Sotheby’s online sale of Old Master Paintings which runs from March 31-April 6. Estimated at 20,000-30,000 GBP it is from the collection of Sir Michael Smurfit. Robert Fagan was born to an Irish family, from Cork, in around 1761. He grew up in Covent Garden and eventually settled in Rome and became a close acquaintance of Sir William Hamilton, British Ambassador to Naples. He had married Emma in London in 1791. She is best known as the mistress of Lord Nelson
FLOWER SELLERS, GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN – NORMAN TEELING (B.1944). UPDATE: THIS MADE 800 AT HAMMER
This Dublin scene by Norman Teeling comes up as lot 38 at Whyte’s Spring online auction which gets underway on the evening of March 28. It is estimated at 800-1,200. The auction of affordable art is designed to encourage first time buyers and seasoned bidders with 273 lots by artists who are well known.
EDWARDIAN INLAID MAHOGANY CORNER CABINET. UPDATE: THIS MADE 130 AT HAMMER
THIS Edwardian corner cabinet comes up at Hegarty’s fine interiors sale in Bandon on March 29 with an estimate of just 200-300. The auction offers a selection of 270 lots of antique furniture, art, silver, jewellery and rugs. The catalogue is online.
Valley Wind, Jemisa by Tony O’Malley at Adams UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
A moonlit seascape by Roderic O’Conor will highlight the live and online sale of Important Irish Art by James Adam in Dublin ON March 30. Marine, au Clair de Lune is estimated at €150,000-€200,000 and is one of a number of Irish works with contrasting styles and approaches from the 19th century onwards to highlight this sale.Along with O’Conor there are leading lots by Jack B. Yeats, Tony O’Malley and James Arthur O’Connor. The Boat, a late Yeats from 1948, is estimated at €80,000-€120,000, Valley Wind, Jemisa, a 1995 Lanzarote painting by Tony O’Malley comes with an estimate of €30,000-€40,000 and James Arthur O’Connor’s Wooded Defile with Figures and Distant Cattle dates to 1827. This masterpiece of Irish Romanticism has an estimate of €25,000-€35,000. These very different works highlight the dynamism and diversity of an Irish art sector that in terms of the art market is going from strength to strength.
Following the highly acclaimed Yeats exhibition at the National Gallery there are three works on paper by the artist at Adams, a 1906 interior of a shebeen, an untitled street scene and work entitled A Rest by the Wayside. Dalkey Sound by Edwin Hayes shows a number of boats caught up in a storm in the straits and makes a strong case for the artist to be considered Ireland’s finest maritime painter. The Modern Irish School is represented with works from the 1940’s to the present. Being (No. 44) by Louis le Brocquy dates to 1957. Girl with Flower by Dan O’Neill also dates to the 1950’s. There is work by James Humbert Craig, Colin Middleton, Gerard Dillon, George Campbell, Patrick Swift and F E McWilliam.
Houses at Crookhaven, West Cork by Brett MacEntagart RHA at Whyte’s. UPDATE; This was unsold
In Dublin Irish art in all price ranges will feature at sales of affordable Irish art at Whyte’s on March 28 and at de Veres the following day. The timed spring online auction at Whytes offers work by many well known Irish artists who are represented by lots at price ranges which are not stratospheric. This is an auction designed for potential collectors tempted to dip their toes in the market. At Whyte’s major sale of Irish and International Art earlier this month Paul Henry’s Lobster Fishermen off Achill sold for a hammer price of €200,000.
Works by Colin Middleton, Dan O’Neill and Louis le Brocquy, each estimated at €10,000-€15,000, highlight the Irish art auction at de Veres now open for bidding. This timed online sale of 156 lots ends on March 29. There are estimates from €100 up.
Daniel O’Neill (1920-1974) – Girl with a flower UPDATE: THIS MADE 38,000 AT HAMMER
Girl with a Flower by Daniel O’Neill is lot 26 at the James Adam evening sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on March 30. It is estimated at 20,000-30,000. Viewing for this sale gets underway today and continues every day until March 30. The auction offers a comprehensive selection of 156 lots and the catalogue is online.
MARKEY ROBINSON (1918-1999) – WATCHING THE FISHING BOATS UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,250 AT HAMMER
Watching the fishing boats by Markey Robinson comes up as lot 12 art Whyte’s Spring online art auction which runs to the evening of March 28. It is estimated at 800-1,000. The auction is online only but viewing is now underway at Whyte’s on Molesworth St. in Dublin. The sale of 273 lots offers a selection by well known artists at affordable prices and is designed to encourage first time buyers as well as more seasoned collectors.
Captain Richard Brydges Beechey , RHA (1808-1895 – Sybil Head, Near the Blaskets and Dingle, West of Ireland 1884
THIS dramatic oil on board of Sybil Head in Co. Kerry by Richard Brydges Beechey made a hammer price of 56,000 at Fonsie Mealy’s sale of Irish and International Art today. It had been estimated at 30,000-50,000. One of Beechey’s finest marine paintings, Sybil Head depicts three currachs braving rough seas beneath jagged rocks at the north west tip of the Dingle Peninsula. To the left, a sailing vessel, perhaps a naval brig, bears down on the currachs, while to the right a hooker approaches from Ferriter’s Cove. Cormorants take flight and seagulls land on the rough seas. A floating tree trunk lies in the path of the brig; Beechey used details such as these to introduce a sense of danger to his paintings. To the right, a mountain, one of the ‘Three Sisters’, is silhouetted against the stormy sky. He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 14 and art formed part of his training. He rose to the rank of Admiral and became one of Ireland’smost accomplished marine painters. This work is from the Joe McGrath Collection of Cabinteely House, Dublin.
Among other hammer prices a pencil portrait of a young woman by Augustus John made 5,000; a portrait of Iseult Gonne by Maud Gonne made 12,000; a watercolour Connemara landscape by Paul Henry made 17,000: a landscape by William Ashford made 15,000; a portrait of the artist’s wife Grace Knewstub by Willam Orpen made 16,000; a portrait of James Hugh Smith Barry by Orpen made 19,000: Soleil en Foret by Roderic O’Conor made 40,000; Aran Folk by Maurice MacGonigal made 17,000 and Sunshine and Shadow by Dorothea Sharpe made 11,000.
There was a new world record for Sir John Lavery at Christie’s Modern British and Irish Art evening sale in London last night. The Croquet Party, which was making its auction debut, sold for £2,922,000. The auction achieved £25.5 million and attracted registered bidders from 14 countries across three continents. According to Christie’s this demonstrates continued growth in the international collector base for the category.
Bridget Riley’s Gala from the curving colour series was the top lot. It made £4,362,000, a new world auction record for the artist. No less than 60% of lots sold above the top estimate.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for March 8, 2022)
ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987) – Shot Sage Blue Marilyn. UPDATE: THIS MADE $195 MILLION TO BECOME THE MOST EXPENSIVE 20TH CENTURY ARTWORK EVER SOLD AT AUCTION
Poised to be the most expensive 20th century artwork ever at auction Shot Sage Blue Marilyn by Andy Warhol wilL lead Christie’s marquee week sales in New York in May. The estimate is in the region of $200 million. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is a definitive work. Warhol first began creating silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe following her death in August 1962. He would create reproductions of her visage multiple times in bright colours, often with the features somewhat askew. In 1964, he developed a more refined and time-intensive screen printing technique, antithetical to the mass production he was best known for, and created a limited number of portraits of the Hollywood legend. This technique was so difficult that he never returned to it again. The artwork has been exhibited widely at leading institutions including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Royal Academy of Arts in London, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Netherland’s, Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen and the Pasadena Art Museum.
Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is from the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich. All proceeds will benefit the foundation which is dedicated to improving the lives of children the world over by establishing support systems centred on providing healthcare and educational programs. This single painting will constitute the highest grossing philanthropic auction since The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller in 2018.
PAUL HENRY – “Connemara Landscape with Cottages and Mountains c. 1923-4” watercolour on paper. UPDATE: THIS MADE 17,000 AT HAMMER
THIS west of Ireland landscape by Paul Henry comes up as lot 85 at Fonsie Mealy’s auction of Important Irish and International Art on March 23. It is believed to be a preparatory sketch for a more finished studio version, documented by S. B. Kennedy and listed in his catalogue raisonné (Cat. 602). The finished version was in its turn translated into an advertisement poster for the London Midland & Scottish Railway. Published in 1925, the caption on the poster read ‘Connemara by Paul Henry “Ireland This Year” ’. By the early 1930’s, along with another image by Henry, it was among the top-selling posters issued by the LMS Railway. The watercolour is estimated at 6,000-8,000. Among the artists represented in the sale are George Russell AE, Sir William Orpen, Wm. Sadler, Paul Henry, Percy French, Maurice Canning Wilkes, Maurice Mac Gonigal, Dorothea Sharp, Daniel O’Neill, Augustus John, Harry Clarke, William Ashford, Roderic O Connor, Maud Gonne, Frank McKelvey, Frederick William Burton and the Yeats family. There are 236 lots in total in the sale.
