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This mid century modern style console table comes up at Hegarty’s auction in Bandon, Co. Cork which continues until January 17. In excellent condition there is a polished chrome frame and shaped teak top. The estimate is 1,500-1,800. The online auction of 195 lots features a selection of antique furniture, art, jewellery, clocks and collectibles. UPDATE: THIS TABLE WAS UNSOLD
An exhibition of richly coloured and textured new abstract work by Bridget Flannery entitled Terra Incognita runs at the Solomon Gallery in Dublin until February 4. The Cork born artist, who graduated from the Crawford in 1981, has held numerous exhibitions throughout Ireland and Europe and has work in private and public collections including the OPW, The Crawford, UCC, Bank of Ireland, The Four Seasons Hotel Group and the Museum of Fine Art in Latvia.
This three seater Chesterfield comes up as lot 210 at Aidan Foley’s two day online auction of contents from a number of five star hotels on January 17 and 18. A total of 1115 lots of furniture, artwork and collectibles will come under the hammer. The most expensively estimated lot, at 5,000-7,000, is an artwork by Graham Knuttel titled Cocktail Girl. The chesterfield comes with an estimate of 600-1,000. There are lots from Dublin’s Four Seasons (now Intercontinental), Westin and Trinity City Hotels, Glenlo Abbey in Galway and Powerscourt Resort and Spa in Wicklow along with memorabilia from Buck Whaley’s nightclub and Larry Murphy’s pub. The sale is on view today, tomorrow, Sunday and Monday at 67 Prussia St. in Dublin and the catalogue is online.
UPDATE: The auction was 97% sold and realised more than €200,000.
A 1977 oil on canvas by William Scott – Two Pears – is among a very strong offering of art at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online art auction which runs until January 30. There will be no less than five watercolour works by Jack B. Yeats, three of them featured in The Turf Cutter’s Donkey by Patricia Lynch with illustrations by Yeats. Lot 15, The Turf Cutter’s Donkey, has never been on the auction market before. Estimates for these range from 5,000-25,000. Among other artists featured are Donald Teskey, John Shinnors, Hughie O’Donoghue, Mainie Jellett and James Arthur O’Connor. The William Scott is estimated at 50,000-70,000. The catalogue will go live on January 18.
A portrait by Mary Palmer (1750-1820), wife of Murrough O’Brien, Marchioness of Thomond and niece of Sir Joshua Reynolds, comes up at Sotheby’s annual Royal and Noble auction online until January 18. Her portrait of the activist, abolitionist and reformer Edward James Eliot, 1st Lord Eliot, MP and Treasury minister during the government of Pitt the Younger, is an almost direct copy of Reynold’s original from 1781. No signed work by Mary Palmer is known but Sotheby’s say the inscription on the back would appear to securely identify this one as by her hand. Mary married the fifth Earl of Inchiquin in 1792. They were created Marquis and Marchioness of Thomond in 1800 as a result of their support for the Act of Union. Mary was chief beneficiary of Sir Joshua’s will, receiving nearly £100,000 and his art collection. The portrait is estimated at £7,000-£10,000 (€7,914-€11,305).
The enduring appeal of Markey Robinson will face its first test at auction in 2023 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current off the wall online art sale. A gouache on board entitled By a Silver Lake comes up as lot 43 in the sale, which begins to close from 6.30 pm on January 9. A total of 455 lots will come under the hammer and the catalogue is online.
CAN 2023 keep up with 2022. That is the burning question facing the market as Christmas has drawn to a close. If 2023 can live up to 2022 in the world of art, antiques and collectibles everyone in the business will be more than happy. In Ireland art and collectibles made strong and steady gains, exactly the sort of progress minus the madness that market insiders like to see. Rare antique furniture was sought after, day to day antique furniture, though attractive, continued to languish in the doldrums.
On the international scene art was hot, hot, hot. Records tumbled all over the place in what turned out to be a year for superlatives. In November the collection of Microsoft founder Paul G Allen at Christie’s broke all records and made more than $1.6 billion, turning into the most valuable private collection of all time. In May Christie’s sold Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn for ¢195 million, the most expensive 20th century artwork ever sold. These auctions lead a long list of sales where many new artists records were established and diminished expectations fuelled by war and financial uncertainty were ridiculously confounded.Another plus was the growing post covid normalisation.
Events like major international and local fairs, shut down in 2020 and 2021, gradually got going again. One significant pandemic plus noted across the board is a whole new wave of tech savvy buyers unafraid of the internet and happy to buy unseen. Many major international sales reported waves of new and young buyers previously unknown to the auction houses.
This west Cork watercolour by William Crozier kicks off Morgan O’Driscoll’s current Off the Wall online art auction which runs until January 9. Signed and dated 1990 it is estimated at 1,500-2,500. The catalogue is online and the auction will be on view in Skibbereen on January 5, 6 and 9.
THE 121st annual Turner exhibition which opens on New Year’s Day today at the National Gallery of Ireland wlll be the most exciting yet. It coincides with the magnificent exhibition Turner: The Sun is God which continues at the Gallery until February 6. Right now the National Gallery of Ireland is offering a visual feast of wonderful work by a rare master who was far ahead of his time. Turner’s art is as contemporary today as when it was painted a couple of centuries ago. An Impressionist 50 years before Impressionism, an abstract artist when abstraction was unknown, Turner as artist and innovator was far ahead of his time. It is always instructive when assessing any art to refer back to the greatest artists by visiting galleries. They set the benchmark. They did it right. Their work shouts it out when lesser artworks fall short. Brutal and frustrating as this may be for artists, it is always an important learning oppprtunity. Ask Jackson Pollock, the great mid 20th century American artist who once said memorably: “F… Picasso”.
In the world of art everyone, including collectors, needs to keep their eye in. Don’t miss these shows. An appreciation of the fact that great art isn’t easy is an important first step. The Sun is God at the National Gallery is a show to be savoured slowly. Turner draws the viewer in as he reveals his fascination with the forces of nature, the sun, moon and clouds. This glowing show traces the development of his compositions from early sketches and exploratory ‘colour beginnings’ to finished watercolours, oil paintings and published prints. It covers a range of themes including memory, imagination, nature, light and atmosphere. This unique opportunity to see 89 artworks from the Tate Collection in London never before displayed in Ireland coincides this January with the annual display of Turner watercolours bequeathed in 1900 by the English collector Henry Vaughan. This year’s selection will include the 31 Vaughan Bequest works, and five additional Turner watercolours, alongside eight of the artist’s much-loved Liber Studiorum prints of landscape and seascape compositions recreated as prints.There is much to celebrate. Turner has always been popular in Ireland. The annual watercolour show had to be cancelled two years ago for the first time in 120 years because of the pandemic. The show last January was the 120th instead of the 121st. This year, uniquely, we will get to see Turner twice.
It has been a very good year in 2022 for the art and collectibles market in Ireland. Generally prices were strong and the auction houses had a busy time. Yet it is abundantly clear that one particular New Year Resolution for 2023 – to buy antique furniture – would be highly rewarding. No matter what the future holds for us there is enormous value to be had right now. In this furniture buyers market a few examples from Cork city sales earlier this month – a situation repeated up and down the country – make the point. At Marshs a Victorian toilet mirror on barley twist uprights sold for €50 at hammer, a pair of Georgian brass firedogs made €30, an Irish Georgian side table on pad feet made €190, an Edwardian two tier centre table made €45, a Victorian hall table on turned legs made €60 and an inlaid Edwardian centre table made €50. At Woodwards a pair of Edwardian wine tables made €20, a carved ships wheel with brass mounts made €90, a Georgian bureau bookcase made €130, an Edwardian Pembroke table made €25, a serpentine fronted hall table with shaped drawer made €100 as did a Georgian mahogany card table, a circular Victorian occasional table made €40 and a Victorian two tier sewing table made €70. Not everything was at a giveaway price and many other lots made more. Nevertheless there are rich pickings for those of us who love old furniture.
