With a span of artists ranging from Yeats and Henry to Scott and le Brocquy the online Irish and International art auction which runs at Morgan O’Driscoll until November 23 is impressive. History buffs will find much interest in The Close of the Battle of the Nile by the Cobh painter George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson (1806-1884). The 1798 battle between the British Royal Navy led by Admiral Nelson and the French resulted in victory for the British. The victory meant that Napoleon’s army in Egypt, cut off from help, vwas also forced to surrender. Napoleon had sought access to Egypt as a first step in a campaign against British India.Shown at The Cork Exhibition of 1883 Peter Murray notes that Atkinson, who spent some years at sea as a ships carpenter, brought his skills as a seaman and an artist to bear. The impressive composition accurately depicts at least 19 individual ships, their position and condition. The work is estimated at €6,000-€9,000.
The Close of the Battle of the Nile by George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson (1806-1884). UPDATE: THIS MADE 6,200 AT HAMMER
Interior by Dan O’Neill is lot 41 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Irish and International Art on November 23. The oil on board is signed on the lower right. As is often the case with O’Neill’s portraits it is lit from one side. The estimate for the piece is 50,000-70,000. UPDATE: THIS MADE 54,000 AT HAMMER
Millions of euro work of Irish art is due to come under the hammer at four pre-Christmas sales by Morgan O’Driscoll (November 23); Whyte’s (December 7); de Veres (December 8) and James Adam (December 9). More than 560 lots will come under the hammer at these sales. It is a mark of the improving condition of the Irish art market that no less than nine of them have estimates in excess of 100,000. Predictably the front runners are Jack B. Yeats, William Orpen, Walter Osborne, Paul Henry and William Scott. These stellar artists notwithstanding the upcoming sales offer an appetising selection by a wide variety of artists across all price points. The number of works with high estimates recalls an oft quoted phrase of modernising Irish Taoiseach Sean Lemass in the 1960’s – “a rising tide lifts all boats”. Irish art values are once again on the up and not before time.
William Scott CBE RA, (1913-1989 STILL LIFE WITH FRYING PAN (1946) (200,000-300,000) at de Veres UPDATE: THIS MADE 200,000 AT HAMMER
An Irish School family portrait dating to around 1816 is a highlight at Dreweatts online sale of the British, American and European Folk Art in Newbury, Berkshire on November 24. The portrait of William Winter and his family bears the inscription, ‘Oh pary accept this trifling gift/This token I am far from you/Yet I shall love you still/Though cruel fate has parted me/From my dear friends and loves/Yet may I soon return again/No more from you to roam’. The portrait of Private William Winter and his family was most probably painted by a professional letter-writer while he was garrisoned in Dublin in February 1816 with the 1st battalion, 48th Regiment of Foot. As the inscription along the lower edge implies he commissioned it as a token of his affection for his family in Gloucestershire. On June 17 that year Winter deserted his regiment and by July 12 had been detained and committed to imprisonment at Chester. The regiment was soon after commissioned to serve in Sydney, New South Wales.
The Pinkers Collection takes its name from a diminutive 17th century fisherman’s cottage on the Kent coast where it has grown in size over the last twenty years. It includes watercolours and oil paintings from the 17th to the early 20th Century. Many are in their original frames and in remarkably fresh condition. Folk Art has been described as ‘the unselfconscious creativity of academically untrained artists’ (Robert Young, Folk Art, 1999) and it is this quality that gives many of the works an immediacy and playfulness that has chimed with generations of collectors.
IRISH SCHOOL FAMILY PORTRAIT (£4,000-6,000). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £15,500
There is something teasingly abstract about Jug, this 1979 oil on canvas by William Scott from Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International online art auction which runs until November 23. It is exactly what the artist intended. Scott wanted his pictures to be about something. In this work he uses a dark background to create an arresting image with the subject matter reduced to the bare minimum. “I am an abstract artist in the sense that I abstract” he explained once. In the summer of 1953 Scott travelled to the US, met Jackson Pollock, Elaine de Kooning, Franz Kline and Mark Rothko and concluded that their version of abstract expressionism was not for him. Instead he made his own of the simplest domestic objects, a frying pan, eggs, a plate, a fish, green beans, a bowl, a jug. Morgan O’Driscoll has another magnificent sale coming up, with work by Yeats, Henry, Donald Teskey, Dan O’Neill, John Shinnors, Gerard Dillon, Robert Ballagh and others. Jug, estimated at €80,000-€120,000, is a highlight.
Deep Blues by William Scott sold for £837,800 over a top estimate of £500,000 at Sotheby’s re-scheduled sale 44 Fitzwilliam Square – Works from the Estate of the Late Patrick Kelly, in London today. Lockdown failed to put a stop to the gallop of this sale of contents from the Dublin home of the late property developer. There was huge interest online and on the telephones as the auction was in progress. It had been scheduled to take place on March 18 and postponed due to lockdown.
Achill Sound by Paul Henry sold for £207,900 over a top estimate of £100,000. Young Men, The Showground Revisited and Early Morning, Glasnevin all by Jack B. Yeats each sold for £176,400, A View of Killarney with the Passage to the Upper Lake by William Ashford sold for £252,000 and Still Life, Fruits by Roderic O’Conor sold for £100,800. A c1760 Irish Georgian mahogany side table sold for £30,240, a pair of Irish clear blue and oval glass mirrors sold for £56,700, a George III style Irish oval hall mirror sold for £25,200 and a pair of mottled pink marble pedestals sold for £13,860. The sale total was £3.3 million.
A stunning array of Irish pictures from the 18th to the 20th centuries as well as Georgian and Regency furniture and decorative arts will come under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London on November 10. If there is a certain sense of deja vu about the auction of contents from 44 Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin it is because this sale was first scheduled to take place in London last March. The first lockdown landed and it was re-scheduled to November just in time for lockdown number two to take off. Things are different this time round, the auction world has adjusted spectacularly well to the online model and there is a zoom boom.
Irish art has fared very well in times of pandemic and this sale offers an exceptional William Scott and five works by Yeats. The paintings by Yeats include The Showground Revisited, painted in 1950 (£150,000-250,000 / €170,000-282,000) and Young Men, painted in 1929 (£150,000-250,000 / €170,000-282,000). The Scott, entitled Deep Blues, has an estimate of £300,000-500,000 / €339,000-565,000.There is art by Daniel Maclise, George Barret, Paul Henry, Roderic O’Conor, George Mullins, James Arthur O’Connor, John Butts, james Humbert Craig, Jeremiah Hoad, Louis le Brocquy, Erskine Nichol, William Sadler, William Ashford, Douglas Alexander, Nathaniel Hone, Harry Kernoff and others including a set of 25 Views of Dublin by James Malton. These were all shown in Dublin a year ago as a curtain raiser to the November 2019 Irish art sale at Sotheby’s. Serious punters who viewed them then will have no trouble vividly remembering them now. The elegant Dublin townhouse, home to the late property developer Paddy Kelly, was a wonderful setting for these paintings and antique furniture pieces like a pair of Irish mirrors and a pair of demi lune side cabinets in the manner of the Dublin maker William Moore. On offer too is a c1820 Irish Regency serving table, a set of four Irish hall chairs c1815 and a matched pair of table globes by Cary. A Victorian silver gilt replica of the Ardagh Chalice has an estimate of £3,000-£5,000. An avid collector, Patrick Kelly (1942-2011) recognised the tradition of Irish painting from the eighteenth century through to the twentieth, complemented with fine Georgian and Regency furniture, silver and decorative arts, amassed from auctions and dealers over three decades.
Michael Flatley’s clearout of Castlehyde near Fermoy to prepare for a refurbishment offers something for collectors across the board – even those who might be into a spot of cannibalism. Pride of place in the sale, to be held online at Sheppards in Durrow on November 26-27, is the mask worn by Anthony Hopkins when he played Hannibal Lecter, the fictional forensic psychiatrist who liked to eat his victims. Signed by Hopkins and co-star Julianne Moore it is estimated at €80,000-€120,000.
UPDATE: THE HANNIBAL LECTER MASK MADE 85,000 AT HAMMER
AN INTERIOR VIEW OF CASTLEHYDE
Not the usual stuff of country house sales, but the Lord of the Dance, who has poured millions into the restoration of the Palladian mansion on the banks of the River Blackwater, is in the realm of collectors who are more extraordinary than ordinary. He is planning a major overhaul of the interior so these pieces are surplus to requirements.More than 700 items collected during the past 20 years will come under the hammer. Period pieces include a pair of 19th century French marble console tables (€8,000-€12,000), a pair of large gilt bronze figures of nymphs each holding a torch (€5,000-€8,000), a Victorian console table and mirror (€5,000-€8,000) and a pair of Edwardian satinwood wing armchair (€1,400-€1,800). There are medieval style suits of armour (€500-€800 each) which are reproduction. So are the Graeco Roman busts displayed in the dining room (from €500-€1,200). There is a Louis XVI desk (€4,000-€6,000), a full size billiard table (€3,000-€5,000), a hide covered Chesterfield (€1,000-€1,500) and some French Rococo style sofas.When he retired from dancing Michael Flatley took to art. One of his pieces, entitled Finishing Line, is at €40,000-€60,000, the second most expensively estimated item in the auction. UPDATE: THE FINISHING LINE ARTWORK MADE 37,000 AT HAMMER
19th century billiard table. UPDATE: THIS MADE 4,600 AT HAMMER
Andy Warhol’s Mao comes up at Christie’s in New York on December 3. It is from the collection of Barbara Allen de Kwiatkowski, which will be offered across eight sales, beginning in New York this December with Post-War & Contemporary Art (December 3), Impressionist and Modern Art (December 4), Magnificent Jewels (December 8), Jewels Online (November 18 to December 1), Design (December 11), Old Master Paintings Online (November 13 to December 4) followed by the April 2021 sales of The Collector (April 8) and Prints & Multiples (April 21).
Muse and close friend to Andy Warhol, she was part owner, cover star, and contributor to his Interview magazine. She and Warhol were famous at Studio 54 and shared a deep friendship. Highlights among more than 60 lots at Christie’s comprise works by Warhol including a silkscreen of Mao executed in 1973 ($1,000,000-1,500,000), an extremely rare portrait sketch of Barbara Allen drawn circa 1976 ($30,000-40,000), and a silkscreen titled VIP Ticket – Studio 54 executed in 1978 ($120,000-180,000). These will be offered alongside photographs by Peter Beard, another close friend. Also featured are important pieces of 20th century design including furniture by Diego Giacometti and vases by Jean Dunand and iconic jewels spanning designs by Belperron, Harry Winston, JAR, and Verdura.
Figures is the title of this mixed media work by George Campbell. It comes up at de Veres online sale of Irish art which runs until November 10. There are 100 works with estimates of 50-2,000. This one is estimated at 200-300.
