Late 18th century fold over tea table. UPDATE: THIS MADE 850 AT HAMMER.
There is furniture and jewellery to choose from at Hegarty’s live online auction from Bandon 2 pm on January 30. A late 18th century Georgian demi lune tea table has an appealing satinwood cross banded top and a flame mahogany frieze. It is estimated at €800-€900. An 18 carat white gold Ceylon sapphire and diamond cluster ring might be just the thing for Valentine’s Day but it does not come cheap. The sapphire weighs 4.72 carats and the ring is estimated at €12,000-€13,000. Among the collectibles on offer is a Cork silver salt spoon (€100-€200) and there are a number of items made by Tiffany including a 14 carat yellow gold compartmented pill box (€250-€450). The catalogue is online.
The Man of Sorrows by Botticelli sold for $45.5 million at Sotheby’s in New York on January 27. The hammer price was $39.3 million, just under the estimate of around $40 million. From an American collection the work had last changed hands in 1963 for £10,000. Works by Botticelli (about 1445-1510), best known for his various portraits of Madonna and Child, The Birth of Venus and Primavera, rarely appear on the auction market. The Man of Sorrows is one of only four of his late works known to be in private hands according to Sotheby’s.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for October 8, 2021 and January 2, 2022)
Gwen O’Dowd (b.1957) – Claddagh 14. UPDATE: THIS MADE 650
This oil on canvas by Gwen O’Dowd is entitled Claddagh 14 and comes up at the James Adam sale of the Jacqueline Stanley and Campbell Bruce collection. It is estimated at 700-1,000. Viewing for this timed online art sale gets underway in Dublin today and continues over the weekend and on Monday. Bidding is now open and it will begin to close from 1 pm on Tuesday, February 1.
ARTHUR ARMSTRONG (1924-1996) – The Study. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,100 AT HAMMER
The Study by Arthur Armstrong comes up at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current online sale of Irish art which runs until January 31. The oil on canvas measuring 13.6″ x 10.6″ is estimated at 600-900. The catalogue is online and the auction of 449 lots is on view in Skibbereen on today, tomorrow and Monday.
Antique furniture, collectibles, rugs and art will all come up at Woodwards first sale of 2022 on January 29 in Cork. Items from recent house sales and estates are featured in this online only auction which is now on view at Cook St. in Cork city centre subject to Covid restrictions. Georgian pieces include a walnut lowboy, an inlaid bureau and a walnut card table all estimated at €500-€800. A Regency sofa table is estimated at €800-€1,200 and chests of drawers and a d-end dining table feature as well. There is a painting of turf stacks by Douglas Alexander (€300-€400) and collectibles include three antique bronze Chinese ceremonial longstaffs (€800-€1,500) and a Rolls Royce Spirit of Ecstasy car figure (€400-€600). A large red ground Kashan carpet and a selection of Waterford Crystal is included too.
Georgian walnut lowboy. UPDATE: THIS MADE 280 AT HAMMER
Hibernian Antique Fairs, hard hit by the pandemic, held a number of virtual fairs over the past couple of years. This weekend they are doing something new. The contents of Bride Park Cottage, Kilumney, Co. Cork are on offer online priced and ready to sell. There will not be fees on purchases. Here is a link to the sale: https://hibernianantiques.com//fairs/cork-sale-1
This early mahogany drop leaf table, lot 192, is priced at 250
A lounge suite from the couple’s flat in the former Maeterlinck Palace
A rare glimpse into the glamorous domestic world of a couple at the heart of the glittering social world of Paris in the 1970’s is offered by a sale at Sotheby’s on February 24. Best known in France and the US François Catroux was one of the most important decorators of the 21st century.François and Betty Catroux married in 1968 when she was becoming the face of Yves St. Laurent and he was decorating bold modern homes for clients like the Rothschilds, Diane von Furstenbert and Princess Firyal of Jordan. He counted Roman Abromovitch, Helene Rochas and Antenor Patino among his clients.
François Catroux elegantly mixed antiques with contemporary furniture. He brought work by contemporary designers like Ron Arad, Ingo Maurer, Martin Szekely, Serge Manzon and Ettore Sottsass together with artists like Luis Tomasello, Lucio Fontana, Tom Wesselman, Zoran Music, Victor Vasarely, Xavier Veilhan, Christian Bérard and Jean Cocteau. On offer at Sotheby’s Paris is the entire contents of the apartment he created for their retirement at the former Maeterlinck Palace overlooking the Baie des Anges at Nice. The project was barely completed when Catroux discovered he had cancer. He died in November 2020. Catroux and St. Laurent were at school together, though they never spoke of their schooldays where St. Laurent had been bullied.
In a New York Times obituary Penelope Green came up with a wonderful quote from Betty Catroux: “I’m not interested in fashion, and I’m not interested in design, and I got the two geniuses on the subject. I could live in an empty room as long as there is a bottle of wine and good music. But I know what’s beautiful. I was so lucky. It’s been a fairy tale life”.
Betty and François Catroux. Photograph: Horst P. Horst/Condé Nast archive
Pablo Picasso, La fenêtre ouverte (1929, estimate: £14,000,000-24,000,000)
A seminal work from Pablo Picasso’s Surrealist period, La fenetre ouverte (1929) will highlight Christie’s 21st edition of The Art of the Surreal evening sale. It is part of the 20/21 Shanghai to London series of auctions due take place on March 1, 2022. Painted on November 22, 1929, this complex and compelling studio scene is one of a series of Atelier works that Picasso had begun around 1926, richly symbolic and radically constructed paintings that reveal the multi-faceted interests of the artist at this time. Other works from this series are housed in museums including The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Musée National d’Art Moderne, Le Centre Pompidou, Paris. At once a still life, a veiled Atelier scene, and a Surrealist distortion of reality, La fenêtre ouverte is rich with personal and artistic symbolism and is estimated at £14 million – £24 million.
DAMIEN HIRST (B.1965) BRITISH – Self Portrait (2008). UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,100 AT HAMMER
In 2007, just before the financial crash, a diamond encrusted platinum skull by Damien Hirst was bought by an investment group for $100 million. Cast from a 35-year-old 18th century European man and retaining the original teeth, the skull is coated with 8,601 diamonds with a large pink diamond on the forehead.
An x-ray self portrait skull by Hirst comes up at lot 118 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online art auction, which runs to January 24. The limited edition light box and x-rays piece is estimated at just €500-700. No diamonds this time.
