Yvonne Jammet (1900-1967) – Rue de Joules. UPDATE: THIS MADE 700 AT HAMMER
This oil on board by Yvonne Jammet kicks off a timed online online picture sale by James Adam in Dublin on July 16. The painter and sculptor spent her career in Ireland, was a member of the White Stag Group in the 1940’s and exhibited portraits, still lifes and landscapes at Victor Waddington’s Gallery in Dublin in 1943. She carved The twelve tribes for the Jewish synagogue in Terenure, Dublin. After the rebuilding of the Cross to St Michael’s church in Dun Laoghaire following a fire Jammet donated carved stations of the cross. She moved to Dublin with her husband Louis Jammet in 1928 to take over the running of his father’s restaurant. Restaurant Jammet was celebrated by Dubliners and popular with artists, writers and actors. The catalogue for the sale is online and the first 18 lots in the auction are by Jammet. Rue de Joules is estimated at €2,000-3,000.
GIOVANNI ANTONIO CANAL, CALLED IL CANALETTO (VENICE 1697–1768) – VENICE, THE RETURN OF THE BUCINTORO ON ASCENSION DAY
A masterpiece by Canaletto – Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day – was the top lot at Christie’s Old Masters evening sale in London this evening. It made £31,935,000, a world record price for the artist. It was once in the collection of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first prime minister. The sale brought in £55.2 million, selling 87% by lot and 99% by value.
This breathtaking view of the Feast of Ascension Day has been largely inaccessible to scholars, having appeared at auction only twice in its 300-year history, in 1751 and 1993. Falling on the fortieth day after Easter Sunday, the Feast of the Ascension of Christ was the most spectacular of all Venetian festivals and was frequently commented upon by visitors and travellers who witnessed it. It was on this day exclusively that the Bucintoro, the official galley of the Doge of Venice and a symbol of the Serenissima, was used. The model depicted here, the last to be made at the Arsenale, was designed by Stefano Conti and decorated by the sculptor Antonio Corradini, identifiable by the lion – symbol of the city of Venice – on the prow and the figure of Justice. Accompanied by the city’s officials, the doge would sail out to the Lido on the Bucintoro and cast a ring into the water, a symbolic act representing the marriage of Venice to the sea. It was a ceremony that brought the entire city together and remained a key date in the Venetian calendar until the fall of the Republic in 1797.
See post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 2, 2025.
A pair of bird’s eye maple hall stands. UPDATE: THIS LOT WAS UNSOLD
An unusual pair of bird’s eye maple ormolu mounted mirrored hall stands with grey marble tops will feature at Marshs online only auction in Cork on July 5. The sale will offer a selection of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian furniture, art and collectibles like Waterford Crystal, silver, clocks, rugs and books.
A large bronze sculpture of a lady signed Ross is estimated at €1,200-€1,500 and a Georgian four door breakfront bookcase has an estimate of €1,000-€1,200. Among other furniture lots are a Victorian rosewood davenport, a Regency satinwood and marquetry occasional table, a Georgian three tier waterfall bookshelf and a Georgian Canterbury.
Irish Georgian bureau bookcase. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,500 AT HAMMER
Self Portrait – Baked Bean Boy by Paul Hewson (Bono) at Whyte’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,050 AT HAMMER
The Irish art market reflects global trends and right now these trends are particularly favourable to online sales of the type that Whyte’s will hold on June 30 and Morgan O’Driscoll on July 1.
Auctions of affordable art by popular Irish and international artists are where the market is at. The value of art sold last year went down but the number of transactions grew because of greater activity at lower levels. Even as the market remains in a state of flux the interest in acquiring art is on the up. In Ireland and around the world more and more people are prepared to buy online at lower prices even as global uncertainty contributes to a situation where fewer records are being broken at the top.
Celebrity sells and Whyte’s will have offerings by Bono (a self portrait though not one that you recognise him in) and Damien Hirst among their offerings. The screenprint by Bono – Self Portrait – Baked Bean Boy – is estimated at just €300-€400. Heart Spin, the acrylic by Damien Hirst, is among the most expensive offerings in the auction with an estimate of €2,500-€3,500.
Seaside Day by Brian MacMahon at Morgan O’Driscoll. UPDATE: THIS MADE 850 AT HAMMER
Among the art at the Morgan O’Driscoll sale is a poster by Tracey Emin and a preparatory design by Mainie Jellett for The Stations of the Cross. The latter artist is currently on show at the National Gallery where The Art of Friendship exhibition featuring paintings, stained glass and preparatory drawings by Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone continues until August 10.
With estimates from €80 and €100 up at both Whyte’s and Morgan O’Driscoll there should be more than enough to tempt newcomers to the exciting world of Irish art auctions. They will join a growing band of seasoned collectors.
One of a set of six prints from the Irish animal series by Pauline Bewick at Whyte’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,200 AT HAMMER
Choices from 286 lots at Whytes include work by Gerard Byrne, Cecil Maguire, Desmond Carrick, Susan Webb, Peter Curling, Banksy, Pauline Bewick, John B Yeats, Tom Nisbet, Harry Kernoff and Joseph Sloan.
The were will be 430 lots at Morgan O’Driscoll’s sale with work by Graham Knuttel, Donald Teskey, Brian MacMahon, Gretta O’Brien, Ken Hamilton, Bridget Flannery, Ivan Sutton, Annemarie Bourke, Louis le Brocquy, Arthur Armstrong, Maria Simonds-Gooding and Maurice Desmond.
On Watch by Graham Knuttel at Morgan O’Driscoll. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,500 AT HAMMER
Gretta O’Brien (1933-2017) – Autumn Reflection 1983. UPDATE: THIS MADE 660 AT HAMMER
This oil on canvas by Gretta O’Brien is lot 108 at Whyte’s summer online art auction which runs until June 30. The sale offers an array of affordable art from Ireland and around the world among 284 lots on offer. Autumn Reflection is estimated at just €700-900.
Jack B. Yeats (1871 – 1957) – Singing ‘The Dark Rosaleen’, Croke Park (1921). Purchased, 2024, with special support from the Government of Ireland and a generous contribution from a private donor
The National Gallery of Ireland has acquired Jack B. Yeats’s iconic painting Singing ‘The Dark Rosaleen’, Croke Park (1921). It was purchased in 2024, with special support from the Government of Ireland and a generous contribution from a private donor and is now on display. As one of Yeats’s few overtly political works, this painting stands as a deeply personal response from a keenly sensitive individual to a seismic moment in Irish history. It is unclear if the scene represents a specific moment Yeats observed, an amalgamation of separate sketches, or a product of his imagination. Though the work does not explicitly reference the violent events at Croke Park on 21 November 1920, known as Bloody Sunday, its title, setting, and sombre tone evoke the tragedy and its consequences.
On that day, during a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary, Auxiliaries (a paramilitary unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary) opened fire on spectators, killing 14 civilians, including Tipperary footballer Michael Hogan, and injuring 60 others. Sketchbooks in the Gallery’s Yeats archive contain multiple depictions of hurling matches at Croke Park indicate Yeats’s familiarity with the setting. When first exhibited in 1921 The Freeman’s Journal remarked on the “surge of patriotic emotion that the most dismal surroundings cannot repress.” It is a lament in the aftermath of the episode rather than a depiction of the violence itself.
The painting was stolen in the Dunsany Castle art robbery in 1990, subsequently recovered and returned to the Plunkett family in 1995. The same year the late art collector Sheila Plunkett, Lady Dunsany, sold ‘Singing the Dark Rosaleen – Croke Park’ at Sothebys for £500,000, when it was bought by Ben Dunne. The Mary and Ben Dunne Collection was sold by Gormley’s in 2022.
Donald Teskey RHA (b.1956) – Kerry Seascape, lithograph – number 36 from an edition of 100. UPDATE: THIS MADE €950 AT HAMMER
Fresh from the success of an online auction on June 23 where Muingelly V (2023), and oil on canvas by Donald Teskey made a hammer price of €11,000, Morgan O’Driscoll will offer a lithograph by the same artist in his Irish art online auction which runs until July 1. The limited edition Kerry Seascape lithograph pictured here is estimated at just €400-600. The off the wall sale, with over 400 lots of affordable art, will be on view in Skibbereen on June 27 and 30 and on July 1. Desire of the Moon (1990) by William Crozier was the top lot at the June 23 auction. It made €17,000 at hammer. A unique bronze Mayo Famine Ship by John Behan made €6,800.
Louis le Brocquy – Painting Figure. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This 1959 work by Louis le Brocquy is at Sotheby’s Modern British and Irish art sale in London on June 26 with an estimate of £30,000-50,000. It was acquired by the present owner at the Esther Robles Gallery in Los Angeles. The auction features important works by British and Irish artists and those working in the UK across the 20th century, including the St Ives Modernists, Scottish Colourists, Bloomsbury, Camden Town, Vorticist and Post-War groups, and it will span paintings, drawings, sculptures and ceramics. Among the Irish artists featured are Sir John Lavery, William Scott and Jack Coulter.
One of a pair of stone sculptures of Kinsale hounds UPDATE: THESE WERE UNSOLD
A monumental pair of stone sculptures of Kinsale hounds might be a tad over the top for your average apartment entrance but with a mansion, a castle or even a large imposing garden it is another story entirely. The Great Danes, in the style of the favourite hunting hound of the 25th Lord Kingsale, John de Courcy (1717-1776) are among a number of remarkable lots at Sheppards annual Glantelwe Gardens sale in Durrow on June 24.
A keen deer hunter Lord Kingsale lived at Old Head Castle and imported a pair of hunting dogs to help him deal with wolves. It is claimed the Kinsale hounds killed the last wolf in Ireland.
A pair of classical style terracotta campana urns UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Sheppards auction, on view from today at Glantelwe Gardens along the banks of the River Erkina in Co. Laois, offers more than 600 lots of statuary, sculpture and architectural pieces. Here you will find everything from a monumental Italian bronze fountain with four classically draped female figures (€15,000-€25,000) to a bronze patinated cannon (€3,000-€5,000), a contemporary bronze sculpture of boxing hares (€2,500-€3,500), a cast iron frog ornament (€50-€80) and a 19th century horse drawn carriage formerly owned by actress Maureen O’Hara.
With classical and contemporary statues, moulded stone urns, cast and wrought iron furniture, architectural salvage sourced from an Irish demesne, antique follies and ornamental ironwork this sale should be a mecca for collectors, gardeners and designers in search of a show stopping centrepiece or a discreet focal point.
A large green patinated bronze sculpture of Mercury, a pair of 19th century arched entrance gates, a set of six cast iron standard urns, a pair of Italianate stone dogs on plinths, neo-classical moulded urns, a pair of large Medici lions in composite stone, a 19th century cast iron bistro set and even a monumental bronze sculpture of a jockey on horseback all have the capacity to inspire.
The Kinsale hounds will set you back an estimated €8,000-€12,000.
A 19th century horse drawn carriage owned by Maureen O’Hara. UPDATE: THIS LOT WAS WITHDRAWN
