Adam de Coster (1586-1643) – A young boy reading a music score by candlelight
Just eight days after Adam’s sold an oil on canvas by Adam de Coster (1586-1643) for a hammer price of €60,000 Sotheby’s in Paris sold a different work by same artist for €38,400. At Adams the top lot of the Country House Collections sale at Townley Hall was Concert (Three Figures) by de Coster, regarded as one of the most refined painters of the Flemish Baroque.
In Paris Sotheby’s offered A young boy reading a music score by candlelight by de Coster from the Schlumberger collection with an estimate of €20,000-€30,000. It sold for €38,400. Adam’s had estimated their de Coster at €40,000-€60,000. The subject matters were quite similar but there are three figures in the Irish offering and only one in the French.
Sotheby’s noted that comparable examples include the Man Singing by Candlelight in the National Gallery of Ireland and the Young Woman Holding a Distaff before a lit Candlelight, recently sold at Sotheby’s, New York.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for October 14, 2026).
František Kupka – Espace non-descriptif sold for €9 million.
Sales of the Schlumberger collection and the Modern and Surrealist art auctions in Paris this week brought in the highest ever total for a series of marquee auctions in the city at Sotheby’s. The auctions achieved €137.7 million. The top lot was František Kupka’s Espace non-descriptif which established a new auction record for the artist in France. This was the second highest price ever achieved for a work by Kupka at auction
Seven artists set new benchmarks for the market: František Kupka, Richard Prince, Mark Grotjahn, Gabriel Orozco, Wolfgang Tillmans, Victor Brauner and Vilhelm Hammershøi. “To have sold €137 million worth of art in just under 80 lots – resulting in our highest ever total for a series of marquee auctions at Sotheby’s in Paris – feels like quite an achievement for us, for the city, and the market in general.” Aurélie Vandevoorde, vice-president of Sotheby’s France remarked.
1810 oval pendant featuring vibrant blue guilloché enamel, a crowned initial ‘A’ of Tsar Alexander I and a foliate border set with old and rose-cut diamonds, in yellow gold and silver.
A jewel believed to have been presented by Tsar Alexander I of Russia (1777–1825), to Lieutenant General Sir Robert Arbuthnot (1773–1853), an Irish born British military commander, will come under the hammer at Elmwood’s in London on October 27. The Imperial Russian diamond and enamel jewel has descended through Arbuthnot’s family line and is offered for sale directly by his family. The reign of Tsar Alexander I was shaped by the Napoleonic Wars, particularly the French invasion of Russia in 1812 and the subsequent allied campaign that culminated in Napoleon’s abdication in 1814.
Sir Robert Arbuthnot was born in County Mayo in 1773, the fourth son of John Arbuthnot of Rockfleet. He entered the British Army in 1797 and served during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, before going on to take part in campaigns across southern Africa, South America and the Iberian Peninsula. He served in some of the most significant military campaigns of the late 18th and early 19th centuries at the heart of the conflicts that defined Europe during the age of Napoleon. The jewel is estimated at £6,000-£8,000.
Sculpture, silver or diamonds. The choice is yours at the online auction by Hegarty’s in Bandon next Wednesday (October 28) at 11 am. There are two fine bronzes by that most collectible of Irish sculptors John Behan, one of two bulls, the other of two figures. The estimates respectively are €8,000-€12,000 and €9,000-€12,000.
A substantial c1968 rococo style candlestick by Royal Irish Silver is estimated at €800-€1,000. It is based on an 18th century design and there is a similar Irish candlestick in the National Museum dating to 1745. A Cork silver sauce boat by John Warner dates to the late 18th century and has an estimate of €500-€700. A c1932 Irish silver dish ring by S H Waterhouse, Dublin is estimated at €600-€800. A pair of white gold diamond stud earrings has an estimate of €1,500-€2,000.
A silver sauce boat made in Cork by John Warner around 230 years ago
The Potato Harvest by Paul Henry broke the million euro barrier.
With Paul Henry breaking the million euro barrier for the first time the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival is not the only cause for celebration this October Bank Holiday weekend.
As the autumn leaves drift by the window the art market ain’t misbehavin’. In fact it has been hitting the right notes all over the show. Thus far October has been an astonishing month.
The sale of The Potato Harvest by Paul Henry for £883,200 (€1,043,290) at Sotheby’s over a top estimate of £350,000 (€414,700) was somewhat of a surprise though nonetheless overdue. With rock solid saleroom performances Henry has been among the most bankable of Irish artists for a very long time.
The Potato Harvest, first exhibited in 1919, introduces many of the defining features of his mature style – the low horizon, dramatic coastal atmosphere and careful balance between figure and landscape. In 2013 The Potato Diggers by Henry made a hammer price of €400,000 at Adam’s in Dublin. Other examples from this series are in public collections like the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
Boys Catching Crabs in Connemara by Gerard Dillon sold for €333,655 at Sotheby’s.
It was a stellar evening for Irish art at Sotheby’s where a private collection of nine Irish paintings was on offer. The combined estimate was £1.4 million (€1.6 million) and six of them sold, making more than €2.37 million. Little Spanish Dancer (Girl in Red Shawl) by Sir William Orpen made £358,400 (€424,652), Boys Catching Crabs in Connemara by Gerard Dillon made €281,600 (€333,655), Red Rocks and Foam by Roderic O’Conor made £243,200 (€288,156), A Winter Sea by Paul Henry made £192,000 (€227,490) and Galway by Jack B Yeats made £81,920 (€97,063).
These results were more than enough to keep the blues at bay even as three paintings, by Sean Scully, Yeats and Henry, failed to find buyers.
Study for a figure by Francis Bacon from the Peter Simon Monsoon collection sold for €127,075,402 at Christie’s.
There were celebrations at Christie’s too. The combined 20/21 evening sales generated £218,603,400 (€258,389,219). There were bidders from around the world and more than 10,000 people turned up for viewings in London. The leading lots were Wassily Kandinsky’s Das bunte Leben (The colourful life) 1907 which made £31,560,000 (€37,394,000) and Piet Mondrian’s Composition III (1920) which made £25,235,000 (€29,899,815). The evening sale of the collection of Peter Simon – founder of the Monsoon clothing chain – made £107,508,800 (€127,075,402). This was the highest value single owner collection ever at Christie’s in London. The top lot was Francis Bacon’s Figure in Movement. It made £17,185,000 (€20,361,733).
Sales of Irish art in Ireland have been going very well this autumn too. Paul Henry’s Connemara Landscape made €140,000 at hammer at Whytes, Against the Stream by Yeats made €125,000. Crossing the City by Yeats and Nude by the Sea by Mainie Jellett each made hammer prices of €120,000. At Adams Errigal by Paul Henry made €95,000 at hammer.
No blue notes are being struck here. If all this is a bit beyond the budget there is always great art out there to be enjoyed for next to nothing. Hilma af Klint, Artist and Visionary – the first major exhibition in Ireland devoted to one of Sweden’s most celebrated modern artists – is now on show at the National Gallery in Dublin. The exhibition, which explores the time, place and circumstance that shaped her unique artistic vision, runs until next February 7.
Altarbilder by Hilma af Klint at the National Gallery.
Kandinsky’s Betonte Ecken is expected to set a new auction record for the artist at Christie’s in New York on November 17. Estimated at $60-$80 million it follows fast on the heels of the London evening sales last week where his 1907 work Das bunte Leben made £31,560,000 ($42 million) and was the top lot of the October season. In Betonte Ecken, painted in Weimar in December 1922-January 1923, the Russian artist attempts to map melody, rhythm and harmony through colour, line and geometry. It was painted at a key moment in the emergence of abstract art.
Monumental in scale and ambition this is a declaration of Kandinsky’s groundbreaking formal language. Formerly in the Guggenheim Museum collection and fresh off the walls of the 2025 Museum Barberini Kandinsky exhibition in Potsdam and the April-August 2026 Calder exhibition in Paris it comes to market from a European collection. The record for a Kandinsky is held by Murnau mit Kirche II (1910) which sold for £37.2 million at Sotheby’s in London in 2023.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for October 7, 2026 and March 2, 2023)
This oil on board of Cushendun, Co. Antrim by Cecil Maguire is at Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall online art auction which runs until the evening of October 27. The estimate is €3,000-€5,000. The auction offers a wide variety of artists at affordable price points and the catalogue is online.
Hugh Douglas Hamilton RHA (1739-1808) – Portrait of “Colonel Hugh O’Donel (1760-1799) sold for €77,000 at hammer.
This portrait of Colonel Hugh O’Donel by Hugh Douglas Hamilton was the top lot at Fonsie Mealy’s sale of contents from Newport House, Co. Mayo. It made a hammer price of €77,000. The post is derived from the Apollo Belvedere at the Vatican. In 1793 with the threat of a French invasion, O’Donel raised a company of troops and became Lieutenant Colonel of the South Mayo Militia. Two years later in 1795 he was elected to the Irish House of Commons representing Donegal town. Along with his brother, Captain James Moore O’Donel (also elected to Parliament in 1795) he joined the parliamentary faction who strenuously opposed the proposed Act of Union with Great Britain-saying he would never surrender Ireland’s legislative independence. For his passionate opposition, and the Militia, to the Act of Union he was dismissed by the government from his colonelcy in 1799. The Lord Lieutenant, Lord Cornwallis, who suppressed the Rebellion of 1798, had offered him a peerage to vote for the Union but he refused. Hugh O’Donel died M.P., in Tralee, Co. Kerry in 1799.
Among the other top hammer prices a Georgian gilt rococo mirror made €50,000; a set of Giant Irish Elk antlers made €46,000; Waiting for the Steamer, Aran Islands by Sean Keating made €40,000; a Georgian dining table made €9,500; a portrait by Hugh Douglas Hamilton of Captain Henry Charles Sirr made €9,500 and a Regency chandelier made €5,200.
John Astley c. 1756 (1724 – 1787) – Portrait of Thomas Pepper, of Ballygarth Co. Louth (1733-1790)
This portrait by John Astley of Thomas Pepper of Co. Louth made a hammer price of €11,000 at the opening day of Fonsie Mealy’s two day auction of contents from Newport House in Co. Mayo. It had been estimated at €3,000-€5,000. A pair of 19th century Meissen vases estimated at €4,000-€6,000 made €9,500 at hammer and a 1911-1915 bracelet set with 19 half sovereigns made €8,500. The 19th century Irish School Hillsborough family portraits made €7,000 at hammer as did Marnock’s Strand by Nathaniel Hone, a portrait of Thomas, Earle of Leghorn attributed to Pompeo Batoni and a Kilkee coastal scene by Nathaniel Hone. The auction continues at The Grace Hotel Westport and online today.
This untitled work by Atsushi Kaga, originally from Tokyo and now living and working between Ireland and Kyoto, was the leading lot at Adams Mid Century Modern sale on October 20. It made a hammer price of €24,000 over a top estimate of €12,000. Brick Screen by Eileen Gray made €9,500 at hammer, a vintage steamer trunk by Louis Vuitton made €8,000, Tangram by Patrick Scot made 6,500, Sun from the Icarus series by Anne Madden made 6,500, a teak extending circular dining table by Hans Olsen made 5,500 and Farmhouse North Mayo by Donald Teskey made 4,600.
