JOHN BEHAN (B.1938) – FAMINE SHIP. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This 2024 famine ship by John Behan is lot 109 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish art online auction which runs until June 24. The bronze is estimated at €15,000-€20,000. The auction features work by artists as varied as Letitia M Hamilton and Nano Reid to Patrick Hennessy, Harry Kernoff and Barbara Warren. Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Sean Scully are on the catalogue along with Brian Maguire, Willie McKeown and Felim Egan. The catalogue is online and the sale will be on view in Skibbereen from June 20.
JEAN SIMÉON CHARDIN (PARIS 1699-1779) – Le Melon entamé (The cut melon)
Le Melon entamé (1760) by Jean Siméon Chardin made €26,730,000 over a top estimate of €12 million at Christie’s in Paris today to become the most expensive Old Master painting sold in France, the most expensive 18th century French old master in the world and the most expensive work sold in France in 2024. From the Marcille and Rothschild collections it was acquired by a European collector. One of the signal masterpieces of Chardin’s late career, The Cut Melon has for almost two centuries belonged to just two families, the Marcille and the Rothschild dynasties, each of which gathered through succeeding generations the greatest and most celebrated collections of Chardin’s paintings ever assembled.
IAN BRENNAN AND ONE OF HIS PAINTINGS. UPDATE: THIS MADE€25,600
Bonhams ground-breaking Male Form sale arrives in Brussels following successful previous auctions on the same theme held in London, New York and Paris. The mission remains unchanged: to challenge a market that has been traditionally centred on the concept of the male gaze – depicting women from a masculine standpoint. It will span centuries and genres, from Antiquities and Old Master Paintings to Sculpture and Decorative Arts, from Contemporary Art to Photography. This year the sale on June 25 features two paintings by the Irish artist Ian Brennan (born 1963). The artist, who trained as a psychotherapist, paints the shadow aspect of the human condition.
Guinness Time wall metal advertising sign depicting Gilroy figures of the seal, ostrich and man. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,600 AT HAMMER
This wall metal Guinness Time image from the David Hughes Collection is lot 1143 at three days of sales by Victor Mee on June 18, 19 and 20. Original artworks from his collection are among the highlights of this pub memorabilia and collectibles sale. He was a brewer at Park Royal and is the author of several books about Guinness. The catalogue is online.
Hillside Cottages, Connemara at Woodwards summer auction in Cork on June 22 is believed by the auctioneers to be an untraced work by Paul Henry – possibly The Wilds of Connemara exhibited at the Fine Art Society in London in 1934 or In the Hills of Connemara exhibited in New York and Boston in 1930. Dr. S.B. Kennedy, the late art historian, curator and author of the definitive work on Henry, reported that a number of Paul Henry’s paintings remained untraced or unidentified. “Paul Henry often made paintings from drawings done perhaps years earlier. Consequently his pictures can be difficult to date and too he often painted variations on a theme”. The setting for this one, which the artist painted many times, is a remote group of cottages in the townland of Loughanillaun with the road from Ballynahinch to Clifden hidden in the valley below the mountains. Framed by Gilberts, Cork in the 1930’s the painting was last at auction at Woodwards around 1964. UPDATE: THIS AUCTION HAS NOW BEEN PUT BACK TO JUNE 29.
An Art Nouveau silver belt, a set of six Cork silver tablespoons by Carden Terry and Jane Williams and a c1775 silver sauce boat by Matthew West of Dublin are among the appetising lots at Hegarty’s online sale in Bandon on June 12. The belt, estimated at €500-€800, is made up of 16 shamrock shaped plates with raised relief decoration linked by looped chains. It dates to 1902. The sale, titled the Dromkeen country house collection, offers a selection of silver, art, antique furniture and collectibles. UPDATE: THIS MADE 380 AT HAMMER
19th century Irish landscape mirror in the Rococo style. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,000 AT HAMMER
If you are searching for mirrors, Irish furniture, art or a piece of interesting silver there are good examples to be found at the James Adam At Home sale in Dublin on June 11. This online only sale offers interesting, affordable and collectibles antiques and furnishings.
The catalogue cover features an attractive giltwood mirror (€500-€800) and a giltwood and marble topped console table (€1,500-€2,000). An early 19th century circular wall mirror with a gilded and decorated frame is estimated at €2,000-€3,000 and a large overmantle with scallop shell and scrollwork cornice has an estimate of €1,500-€2,000. There is a similar estimate on a c1880 overmantle surmounted by a faience dish. A 19th century Irish carved giltwood landscape mirror in the rococo style is estimated at €600-€1,000.
A pair of George III mahogany dining room urns on pedestals. UPDATE: THESE MADE 3,200 AT HAMMER
Among the more expensive antique furniture pieces are a pair of George III dining room urns on pedestals with domed fluted covers and acorn finials, a pair of mahogany framed Gainsborough armchairs and a c1790 Irish sycamore and rosewood banded demi-lune pier table. All are estimated at €3,000-€5,000. Signed pieces include a Victorian love seat by Robert Strahan (€400-€600) and a pair of marquetry inlaid mahogany settees by the British maker James Schoolbred whose workshop was on Tottenham Court Road (€1,000-€1,500).
A Korean ebonised storage chest UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
The selection of furniture ranges from a Georgian hunt table, a Dutch marquetry display cabinet and a Georgian bowfront sideboard to some Irish George III brass bound plate buckets, a Louis Quatorze walnut bureau de dame, a Victorian circular breakfast table and a Georgian slope front bureau.
The auction of more than 400 lots kicks off with a selection of garden furniture headed by a large Victorian cast iron Warwick Vase garden urn (€2,000-€3,000). A pair of 20th century pottery waisted planters (€300-€500), garden benches, terracotta plinths, Italian terracotta lions and a Victorian cast iron classical figure all feature.
Art offerings include landscapes and still lives, portraits and seascapes and the array of collectibles includes a 19th century French gilt and porcelain clock, a Waterford Crystal nine branch chandelier and a large Edwardian hexagonal hall lantern. A c1775 silver salver made in Cork by Stephen Walsh will attract interest as will an Irish provincial silver sauceboat struck “Sterling” and a pair of Irish George III silver oval trays. This will be the last At Home sale by Adams before the summer break.
A large Edwardian hexagonal hall lantern. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,100 AT HAMMER
WILLIAM IV GILTWOOD AND MALACHITE CIRCULAR TABLE. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This malachite topped circular William IV table comes up as lot 29 at the James Adam At Home auction. The top is supported on a fluted centre column with carved cabochons and rim masks on scroll legs carved with leaves. The estimate is 1,500-2,500. The timed online only auction is now up and running and will begin to close from 11 am on June 11. Viewing for the sale gets underway in Dublin today.
Barry Flanagan – Lament. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £180,000
Barry Flanagan’s bronze sculpture Lament (2007) at Sotheby’s Modern British and Irish evening auction in London on June 6 is a late exemplar of perhaps the artist’s most celebrated series of works. Cast only two years before Flanagan’s death it combines figuration and abstraction, whimsy and sorrow. The hare becomes anthropomorphic, its arms raised in a theatrical gesture. The hare is captured in a moment of expressive exultation or anguish, as the contorted and twisted body appears to be fluctuating on the verge between the two. Number 1 from the edition of 8, plus four artist’s casts, it is estimated at £150,000-£250,000.
What a difference a professional restoration can make. Pictured here are before and after conservation images of The Madonna of the Cherries by Quentin Metsys, which will be a highlight at Christie’s Old Master sale in London on July 2. Painted in the 1520’s in Antwerp all trace of the work was lost following the death of its then owner in 1668. It resurfaced in Paris in the 1920’s with an altered composition including a curtain across the window and was no longer recognised as work by Metsys. With its overpainting and varnish it was offered at Christie’s in 2015 as a studio variant deriving from the original, reflecting scholarly opinion at that time. Subsequent conservation was transformative and enabled scholars to recognise it as the original. The estimate for the work is now £8 million – £12 million (€9.40 million – €14.09 million).
