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.
A FAMILLE ROSE ‘HUNDRED BATS’ VASE. UPDATE: THIS MADE 20,000 AT HAMMER
This Famille Rose hundred bats vase comes up as lot 119 at the James Adam Chinese New Year sale of Decorative Asian Arts in Dublin on January 18. The globular trumpet necked vase with the Guangxu six-character mark and of the period is estimated at €5,000-€7,000. The brightly enamelled vase has a profusion of iron-red bats in flight amidst multicoloured lingzhi clouds, between a band of ruyi heads at the rim and upright lappets around the foot. It is divided at the shoulder by a band of lotus sprays alternating with gilt shou characters on the shoulder above a gilt relief border.
René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières captures the visual paradox that lies at the heart of the artist’s originality. With an estimate in excess of $60 million this masterpiece of 20th century art will be offered as a highlight of Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary evening auction in London on March 2. It has been on loan to the Musée Magritte in Brussels from 2009-2020. It was created in 1961 for Baroness Anne-Marie Gillion Crowet, the daughter of Magritte’s patron the Belgian Surrealist collector Pierre Crowet, and has remained in the family ever since.
An exhibition of recent sculpture by Irish Ukrainian artist Vadim Tuzov opens at Solomon Gallery in Dublin tomorrow and runs until February 5. Tuzov attended a Junior School of Art, before going on to study drawing and sculpture at the National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture in Kiev. He began sculpting full-time in the late 80s and later moved to Ireland with his family, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He has his own studio and foundry in Co. Wicklow and casts and patinates his own work. This is his second show at Solomon.
Bonhams has announced the acquisition of Bukowskis, the leading auction house in the Nordic region. Established in 1870 and with its flagship saleroom in Stockholm, Bukowskis is renowned throughout Scandinavia. During recent years they have transformed themselves from a much-loved, traditional, and respected brand into an innovative digital presence that attracts more than one million users every month. Last year, Bukowskis sold 11 out of the 15 most valuable artworks in the Swedish market. The acquisition is part of Bonhams strategy to further the development of Bonhams into a digital leader and a truly global player with a balanced presence across the US, Europe and Asia.
