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With everything from an antique brass domed bird cage to a late Regency mahogany centre table the Attic sale at Sheppards in Durrow on January 26 offers 667 lots at reasonable estimates. The catalogue is online. Here is a small selection:
Group of six Chinese jade coloured ornaments (100-150).
One of a pair of Adam style mirrors (800-1,200).
Antique brass domed bird cage (50-80).
Large Regency centre table (600-900).
A Cork Regency side table (200-300).
Gerhard Richter – Abstraktes Bild (725-4)
One of only a handful of spectacular examples of Gerhard Richter’s Abstrakte Bilder in private hands comes up at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening sale in London on February 10. Painted in 1990 Abstraktes Bild (725-4) remained in the artist’s private collection until 1996 when it was unveiled at an exhibition of his personal paintings at the Carre d’Art in Nimes: “Gerhard Richter: 100 Pictures”. The work has not been exhibited publically since.
Acquired by the current owner via Marian Goodman and Anthony d’Offay in 1996 it will be offered at auction for the very first time with an estimate of £14-20 million. “There continues to be great momentum in the Richter market, particularly for his abstract works. This particular example is monolithic and muscular, a masterpiece with a spectacular structure comprised of dramatic layers of a kaleidoscope of colours. With its enviable provenance, it has all the ingredients you’d hope for from a truly great Richter abstract” said Isabelle Paagman, Sotheby’s senior director, Contemporary Art.
The world’s most valuable living painter, Gerhard Richter has seen his auction record broken three times in the past four years, most recently at Sotheby’s in London when an Abstraktes Bild from 1986, estimated at £14-20m, sold for £30.4m last February.
Lucian Freud – Pregnant Girl.
Lucian Freud’s Pregnant Girl will highlight Sotheby’s contemporary art evening auction in London on February 10. The painting, estimated at £7-10 million, marks a pivotal moment in the his career and shines a spotlight on a little-known moment in the artist’s life. Barely anything is known about his intense relationship with Bernadine Coverley. The two met when she was 16 and he was already an established artist, 20 years her senior. Although their time together was relatively brief, it was to prove critical – marking both the beginnings of a life-long bond and, for Freud, a new approach to painting.
Coverley, whose Irish Catholic parents ran the Black Horse pub in Brixton, was sent to a convent boarding school at the age of four. Feeling trapped and despondent under the strict governance of the convent, she twice tried to run away. By her teens, she craved the liberation and excitement of bohemian Soho – an intoxicating underground world of artists, musicians and writers. It was here, in a Soho pub in 1959, where Coverley first met Freud, who was captivated by her natural beauty and free spirit.
Much has been written about Freud’s famously numerous partners – when he first met Coverley, he had already been twice married and had fathered a number of children – but little is known about their relationship. Pregnant Girl opens a window onto the most meaningful moment in the lives of both lovers, embodying the singular tenderness he felt for Bernadine, soon to be the mother of his daughters Bella and Esther. “It must have been a very happy time in her life, being pregnant with the man she loved and him wanting her to be there and paint her”, says their daughter Bella, “I think he was undoubtedly the love of her life.”
After separating from Freud, Coverley left England (and its conservative views on unmarried mothers) with her two small daughters to start a new life in Morocco. The story of their bohemian lifestyle in Marrakesh wasimmortalised in Esther’s novel “Hideous Kinky”, and later turned into a hit film with Coverley played by Kate Winslet. Freud and Coverley died within just four days of each other in July 2011.
Rembrandt – Self Portrait at the age of 63
A magnificent late Rembrandt self portrait is on display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast until March 13 as part of the Masterpiece Tour organized by the National Gallery in London. Rembrandt (1606–1669) produced some 80 self-portraits – paintings, drawings and prints- over the course of his 40-year career. No artist before Rembrandt, and only a very few since, have made self-portraiture such a significant part of their life’s work. Self Portrait at the Age of 63, painted in the final year of the artist’s life, is among the very last works he finished. It is a work of sheer virtuosity: proof, if ever it were needed, that with maturity his talent had only become all the more profound.
At the Ulster Museum the late Rembrandt is hung with a small group of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings from the Museum collection. These paintings are by artists whose work Rembrandt would have known, including Salomon van Ruysdael, Jan Symonsz Pynas, Jan van der Heyden and Nicolaes Maes. When viewed together there is sense of entering Rembrandt’s world.
The Masterpiece Tour reflects the National Gallery’s commitment to promoting the understanding, study and appreciation of its collection to as wide an audience as possible. A Gallery painting toured each year between 2014 and 2016. In 2016 Rembrandt’s Self Portrait at the Age of 63 opens at the Ulster Museum then goes to Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal; and Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
The Stolen Mirror a technical tour-de-force by Max Ernst leads Christie’s sale of the Art of the Surreal in London on February 2. One of the artist’s finest works the dream like landscape painted in 1941 is estimated at £7-10 million. The auction comprises 42 lots by 16 different artists. Among them are Pablo Picasso, Wilfredo Lam, René Magritte, Joan Miró and Salvador Dali. Here is a taste:
MAX ERNST (1891-1976) The Stolen Mirror (£7-10 million).
© Christie’s Images Limited 2015
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Arlequin
signed ‘Picasso 26’ (£1.5-2.5 million). © Christie’s Images Limited 2015
The online off the wall art auction by Morgan O’Driscoll runs to January 18 at 6.30 pm. There are 368 lots. Here is a small selection. The catalogue is online.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for January 5, 2016).
Louis le Brocquy – Human Image XII (2005) (2,000-3,000). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 1,700
Tony O’Malley – Three Birds from Window (800-1,200). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 3,000
Colin Davidson – Stormont Gate Lodge (2,000-3,000). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 2,800
Arthur Maderson – Evening Study, Venice (3,000-5,000). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 5,500
A self-portrait by Egon Schiele painted when the artist reached creative maturity in 1909 leads Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in London on February 2. It is estimated at £6-8 million. The auction includes 50 lots which trace the rich variety and breadth of revolutionary movements from the late 19th and early 20th century from Impressionism, to early Modernism, Cubism, Colourist works and Expressionism.
Among the museum quality works on offer are Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel, one of Marc Chagall’s most romantic paintings of the 1920’s (£4.8-6.8 million); the largest of a series of four works Paul Cézanne created at the home of legendary Impressionist collector Victor Chocquet (£4.5-6.5 million); Fernand Léger’s Le moteur, 1918, (£4-6 million); a still life by Pablo Picasso from 1937, painted on the eve of Guernica (£4-6 million); Chrysanthemum by Piet Mondrian (£1.6-2.4 million) and Bahnhof Königstein, by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1916. The evening sales of Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist Art on February 2 have a total pre-sale estimate of £87.3 million to £129.1 million.
The auction will open a week of five Impressionist, Modern and Surreal art sales at Christie’s King Street and South Kensington with estimates from £300 to £10 million.
EGON SCHIELE (1890-1918) Selbstbildnis mit gespreizten Fingern (£6-8 million)
© Christie’s Images Limited 2015 UPDATE: THIS MADE £7.2 MILLION
PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
Nature morte
signed and dated ‘Picasso 25 Av 37’ (£4-6 million) © Christie’s Images Limited 2015 UDATE: THIS MADE £4 MILLION.
William Tatton Winter RBA
1855 – 1928
A STREET CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX, NORMANDY
Watercolour (600-800).
Frank Egginton RCA FIAL
1908 – 1990
A SUNNY EVENING, CO. MAYO, watercolour (800-1,200).
An Irish Florilegium, Wild and Garden
Plants of Ireland, Volumes I & II,
Illustrated by Wendy Walsh, with
sucscribers list to volume II, Signed
by Wendy Walsh and Charles Nelson (950-1,250).
The Circus comes to town by Orla Egan (300-500).
Lemuel Francis Abbott – Portrait
One of the most famous golf portraits in the world became the most valuable when it sold for £722,500 at Bonhams in London last month. Painted by Lemuel Francis Abbott in the 1790’s the Portrait of Henry Callender standing in a landscape in the attire of Captain General of the Blackheath Golf Club is one of the earliest golf portraits of an identified sitter.
After Callender’s death in 1812 prints were made of the work and have been in golf clubs and private collections around the world for centuries. The original painting was in the Royal Blackheath Golf Club in south east London for more than 150 years. It was sold to enable the club buy the freehold of the course and clubhouse from the Crown Estate.
Picasso in Private at Sotheby’s in London on February 5 offers an opportunity to acquire works on paper, ceramics and terracotta sculpture that remained in the artist’s studio throughout his lifetime. They will be offered from the collection of his grand daughter Marina Picasso. Highlights will be on view at Sotheby’s in New York from January 13=17.
A masterful overview of Picasso’s career in its entirety, spanning every decade of his oeuvre and encompassing each of the artist’s genres, the collection of 187 works includes 70 ceramics and terracotta sculptures and 106 works on paper. With estimates ranging from £4,000 to £180,000, the sale is expected to make a combined total of £6.9–9.8 million. It will follow Sotheby’s Impressionist, Modern & Surrealist Art evening and day sales on February 3 and 4.
Pablo Picasso – Nature morte aux fruits (£100,000-150,000).
Pablo Picasso – Chevalier picador dans l’arène (£120,000-180,000).
Pablo Picasso – self-portrait
Pablo Picasso – Femme a la robe entrouverte c1955 (unique) £35,000-45,000.
