 |
 |
LIAM O’NEILL – TURNING THE SOD UPDATE: THIS MADE €23,000 AT HAMMER
This oil on canvas by Liam O’Neill is at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Irish art which runs until July 20. Turning the Sod is estimated at €10,000-€15,000. The auction offers 255 lots including work by Donald Teskey, John Behan, Dorothy Cross, William Crozier, George Campbell, Tim Goulding, Martin Finnin, Kaws, Louis le Brocquy, Arthur Maderson, Charles Tyrrell and John Shinnors. The catalogue is online.
An Italian 1970’s mobile cocktail trolley. UPDATE: THIS MADE 360 AT HAMMER
f you are dreaming of outdoor summer drinks in warming up Ireland then a striking mobile cocktail trolley on casters might fill the bill. The selection of vintage mid century modernist furniture at the online art and design auction at de Veres until July 15 includes a retro Italian 1970’s mobile cocktail bar which with little effort could be wheeled to a patio in the heat. The estimate is just €400-€600.
A 1960’s rosewood Italian sideboard with an estimate of €800-€1,200, a pair of Magis Bombo aluminium bar stools (€400-€600), a pair of French space age floor lamps (€400-€600), a burr walnut dining table attributed to Willy Rizzo (€600-€900) and a circular table by Arne Jacobsen (€200-€300) all feature at de Veres. There is no in person viewing thugh lots can be viewed by appointment. The auction of 242 lots features a large selection of artworks and the catalogue is online.
A 1960’s rosewood Italian sideboard. UPDATE: THIS MADE 650 AT HAMMER
Oliver Barker, chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, conducting the sale of the Lewis collection.
Cool art generated real heat in the midst of a scorching London heatwave. All sorts of records were broken at Sotheby’s night to remember sales of the Lewis Collection and Modern and Contemporary art.
Four auctions realised £420,488,006 (€487,177,483), the highest total for any season of sales ever staged in Europe.
Sotheby’s sales were led by Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection where 25 paintings made £296 million (€342.95 million). Modigliani’s Seated Nude with Necklace sold for £48.2 million (€55.84 million) and led the nine works which sold for over £10 million (€11.59 million). Among them was art by Picasso, Klimt, Egon Schiele, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.
Amedeo Modigliani – Nu assis au collier sold for £48.2 million (€55.84 million).
Competitive and deliberate bidding from around the world lasted for nearly two hours. This was the most valuable single owner sale in London’s auction history. Bidders came from 45 countries. Asian collectors accounted for over one third of the value of the sale.
The collection was assembled over more than two decades by 89 year old former Tottenham Hotspur owner Joe Lewis, noted for his significant impact on the art market through his extensive collection and strategic transactions, and his daughter Vivienne. The Lewis collecting philosophy is centred on assembling museum quality masterpieces. Lewis sold his stake in Christie’s, where he was the largest single shareholder, to Francois Pinault in 1998 after a share price surge. Committed to the avant-garde painters of today the Lewis family intend to continue their collecting journey into the future.
Claude Monet – Nymphéas sold for £40.8 million (€47.27 million).
Fuelled by stellar works by Monet, Rothko, Hockney and Kandinsky the Modern and Contemporary auction which followed the Lewis auction brought in another £97 million (€112.38 million). Bidding was again deliberate as opposed to speculative and 40 lots took two hours to sell. The top lot was Monet’s Nymphéas (water-lilies) which made £40.8 million (€47.27 million) to become the most valuable Impressionist work sold at auction in Europe in over a decade.
The combined total of £393.4 million (€455.79) for the two sales set a new single night auction record for Europe. Next day the Modern day auction including art from the Lewis collection totalled £17.7 million (€20.51 million) and the Contemporary day auction added another £9.3 million (€10.77 million).
Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Gertrud Loew sold for £36.1 million (€41.83 million)
The extraordinary Lewis collection traced a line from Viennese portraiture to the painters from the School of London with modern figurative painting at its core. The overall total of 47 works sold from the collection came to £306.6 million (€355.23 million). Together with the £35.8 million (€41.48. million) for the four School of London works sold at Sotheby’s in March led by Francis Bacon’s 1972 self portrait the combined total for the Lewis collection sold at Sotheby’s this year is £342.4 million (€396.7 million).
These sales continued an emerging trend where growth in the global art market is concentrated at the top. Single owner collections of museum quality works continue to be the market driver.
Arrangements 5 is the title of this 2026 oil on linen by Orla Whelan whose exhibition entitled Sulphur is at the Lavit Gallery in Cork until July 11. The artist’s research in collaboration with The Fold art and geology group – whose members explore geology as a source of inspiration for creative practice – focused on specimens of elemental sulphur from the rock collection at University College Cork. Drawn to the intense colour her interest deepened to include the invisible embedded crystalline structure and the historical role of sulphur in alchemy, industry and astronomy.
Pamela Leonard (B.1940) – Evening in Howth Etching 18/30. UPDATE: THIS MADE 150 AT HAMMER
This etching by Pamela Leonard is lot 89 at Adam’s timed online picture auction which runs until July 14. The estimate is 300-500. The sale of 230 lots features a wide variety of artists including Oisin Kelly, Graham Knuttel, Markey Robinson, Nano Reid, Barry Cooke, Mainie Jellett, Patrick Scott and Tony O’Malley and many more at very affordable prices. The catalogue is online.
The Mayor Gallery, London shows Minding his own Business by Patrick O’Reilly at Treasure House.
From Old Master paintings, antiquities, sculpture and rare books to a prehistoric woolly mammoth head and Galileo’s first drawing of the moon the incredible London season now in full swing continues on its merry way.
London’s flagship Treasure House Fair continues at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea this weekend, it is Classic Week at Christie’s and Sotheby’s offerings next week include Scene in Braemar by Sir Edwin Landseer, a little known sister painting to The Monarch of the Glen.
In Ireland summer online sales of much more affordable art will be held at Whyte’s on Monday June 29 and Morgan O’Driscoll on Tuesday June 30. It all adds up to a very healthy market for art and collectibles.
The trove of masterpieces at Treasure House includes a 25,000 year old woolly mammoth head, drawings by Gallileo, a luxurious dog house made for Marie Antoinette’s favourite pet, a pair of commodes owned by Madame du Pompadour, jewels from the era of Henry VIII and Shakespeare, an exhibition of contemporary British women artists, a show of British Surrealism and a sculpture walk with monumental artworks by Eduardo Paolozzi, Elizabeth Frink, Ron Arad, Nicola Anthony and Patrick O’Reilly.
Sir Thomas Lawrence – Portrait of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE £9,670,000 A NEW WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
Christie’s has an estimate of £8 million – £12 million (€9.22 million – €13.83 million) on Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. In this portrait painted after Wellington’s defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo the artist succeeded in penetrating Wellington’s aura of heroism to capture the essence of the man. The Old Master’s sale takes place next Tuesday evening (June 30). Sales during Classic Week feature art from antiquity to the 21st century.
Sir Edwin Landseer – Scene in Braemar at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £5,946,000 A NEW AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
The estimate for Landseer’s Scene at Braemar at Sotheby’s on the following evening (July 1) is £3 million – £4 million (€3.46 million – €4.61 million). Painted in 1857 the nearly nine foot canvas is a darker sister painting to the iconic and renowned Monarch of the Glen.
Rosaleen Brigid Ganly (1909-2002) – Stargazer Lily at Whyte’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE 150 AT HAMMER
There is a good selection of affordable art at Whyte’s summer online art auction which gets underway at 6 pm next Monday (June 29). The catalogue features 241 lots and includes work by Jack Butler Yeats, Walter Osborne, Estella Solomons, Eva Hamilton, Harry Kernoff, Dan O’Neill, Henry Moore, James Brohan, Liam Treacy, Banksy, Nelson Mandela, Brigid Ganly and many more artists. The most expensively estimated lots are Fishing Boats by James Brohan an d Self Portrait by Eva Hamilton, each estimated at €2,500-€3,500. The Tennis Court, a signed lithograph by Nelson Mandela from his Robben Island series, is estimated at €2,000-€3,000.
Majella O’Neill Collins (b.1964) – Returning home to Sherkin Island at Morgan O’Driscoll. UPDATE: THIS MADE €2,000 AT HAMMER
Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall online sale of affordable art is on view in Skibbereen next Monday and Tuesday. It gets underway at 6.30 pm on Tuesday (June 30) and the catalogue is online. An oil on board of Montpellier by Arthur Maderson carries the highest estimate of €4,000-€6,000. There is art by a wide variety of artists including William Crozier, Paul Henry, Damien Hirst, Robert Ballagh, Shepard Fairey, Andy Warhol, Jack B Yeats, Jim Sheehy, George Campbell and John Behan.
Sir John Lavery – The Bathing Hour, the Lido, Venice (1912)
The National Gallery of Ireland has announced two new acquisitions, the Bathing Hour, the Lido, Venice (1912) by Sir John Lavery and Young Ireland (1907) by Sir William Orpen. The Lavery was enabled by the 1997 Taxes Consolidation Act which offers tax relief in respect of donations of important heritage items. The Orpen was bequeathed by Alan and Mary Hobart whose Pym’s Gallery in London tirelessly promoted Irish art for many years. The two new works are now on display in Room 16.
Pablo Picasso – Baigneuses, sirènes, femme nue et minotaure sold for £7,044,000
June sales of Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection and Modern & Contemporary art at Sotheby’s in London realised £420,488,006 across four auctions. This is the highest result for any season of sales
ever staged in Europe. There was spirited activity from around the world, with bidding from 45 countries and particularly strong participation from Asian collectors, whose purchases in The Lewis Collection evening auction accounted for over a third of the total value of the sale.
The season was led by Masterpieces from the Lewis collection. The 47 works sold in Sotheby’s rooms
this week brought in £306.6 million, the highest total for any single owner sale ever staged in London. Together with the £35.8 million realised for four School of London works offered from the same collection in March, the combined total for works sold from the Lewis Collection at Sotheby’s this year now stands at £342.4 million. The Lewis evening auction realised £296.3 million for 23 work with nine breaking the £10 million barrier. La Loge, a pastel by Degas, did not find a buyer during the sale but was sold immediately afterwards to a private collector.
The contemporary day auction totalled £9.3 million and the modern day auction, with masterpieces from the Lewis collection, brought in £17.8 million.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn – Let The Little Children Come Unto Me, c.1627 UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £8 MILLION
A rare and fascinating early history painting by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn comes up at Sotheby’s in London on July 1. Discovered just over a decade ago, and carefully restored since it offers insights into his working practices and reveals a powerful message of tolerance. There is a vivid self-portrait, depictions of his mother and father and, quite possibly, of his god-parents and god-sister too. In no other image does Rembrandt bring his family together so completely. He made it after his return to Leiden following his apprenticeship with leading Amsterdam artist Pieter Lastman. Rembrandt ultimately left the foreground unfinished. It was completed at a later point, by an unidentified contemporary or follower. Recent restoration has removed these additions to reveal Rembrandt’s original hand.
The tall figure in the centre of the scene had – under Rembrandt’s hand – been wearing a turban, but this was replaced during the re-painting by a more familiar-looking Dutch soft cap. The presence of this oriental (possibly Muslim) figure might here be particularly pertinent, given that the Jewish and Christian faiths are also represented in the painting. In light of this, it is possible that Rembrandt was seeking to harness the image to spotlight the question of tolerance between faiths. The 30 years war at its height and Leiden was full of refugees, a question that would have probably preoccupied him at this time.
Rivalry between religious factions was then spilling onto the street, something Rembrandt would have felt acutely, given his own mixed religious heritage (his mother had Catholic roots, his father Protestant).
The estimate for the work is £8-£12 million.
Amadeo Mogliani’s Nu assis au collier sold for a record £48.2 million at Sotheby’s tonight. This was a new European record for the artist. The collection of billionaire Joe Lewis achieved £296.3 million to become the highest single owner collection ever sold in London. A 1995 nude by Lucian Freud, Sleeping by the Lion Carpet made £29.3 million and a portrait of Gertrud Loew by Gustave Klimt sold for £36.2 million. Magritte’s La Belle Promenade, with a high estimate of £4 million, sold for £16 million, a record for a work on paper by the artist. Joe Lewis, former owner of Tottenham Hotspur football club, built up the collection with his daughter Vivienne.
The Modern and Contemporary auction followed at Sotheby’s. Claude Monet’s Nymphéas was the top lot, selling for £40.7 million.
Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection and the Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction achieved a combined total of £393.4 million – the highest auction total ever achieved in a single night in Europe.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for June 19, June 13, June 7 and May 1, 2026)
