Sandro Botticelli – The Man of Sorrows UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $45.5 MILLION
One of the last great Botticelli masterpieces in private hands will come up at Sotheby’s in New York next January during Masters Week. The Man of Sorrows – which portrays the resurrected Christ – is a late work produced at a time when the artist had come under the influence of fanatical Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola. It has an estimate of in excess of $40 million. It comes to market following the record-breaking sale of Botticelli’s Young Man Holding a Roundel at Sotheby’s last January. It made $92.2 million.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for January 28, 2021)
PAUL HENRY RHA (1876-1958) – Turf Stacks in Connemara. UPDATE: THIS MADE 190,000 AT HAMMER
Turf Stacks in Connemara by Paul Henry will be a highlight at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International online art sale on October 26. Measuring just 14″ x 16.1″ it is estimated at €120,000-160,000. The catalogue for this sale of 145 lots is online and it will be on view in Skibbereen from October 15-17 and in Dublin at the Minerva Suite at the RDS from October 22-25.
Boat, Connemara by Lucian Freud comes up at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening sale in London on October 14 with an estimate of £750,000-£950,000. It is one of two works the artist produced while in Ireland for three weeks in August 1948. It appeared on the market for the first time in more than 50 years at Christie’s in 2012 with an estimate of £200,000-300,000 and sold for £657,250. It is being sold by the owner who acquired it then. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for January 30, 2012)
A Yeats from the collection of Barney Eastwood comes up at Christie’s Modern British and Irish art sale in London on October 20. A Sea Town from 1931 is estimated at £200,000-300,000. It is one of several Irish works in an auction with works by Winston Churchill, Elisabeth Frink, L.S. Lowry, Patrick Caulfield and Samuel John Peploe which is now online for browsing.
This William and Mary walnut chest comes up as lot 38 at Sheppards sale of contents of 33 Wellington Place, Dublin online from Durrow on October 21. It is estimated at 1,500-2,500. There are 168 lots in this evening sale and the catalogue is online.
The wonderful surroundings of Townley Hall near Drogheda will be the viewing venue for Adams annual Country House Collections sale on October 18 and 19. Viewing will take place at the Francis Johnston designed neo-classical masterpiece on October 15, 16 and 17. The live and online auction with around 700 lots will take place at the St. Stephen’s Green saleroom on October 18 and 19. The sale will showcase fine Irish Georgian furniture and Irish Old Master artworks.
A PAIR OF 19TH CENTURY GEORGE III STYLE GILTWOOD CONSOLE TABLES, in the manner of William Kent. UPDATE: THESE MADE 18,000 AT HAMMER
Andy Warhol (1928-1987) – Jean-Michel Basquiat.UPDATE: THIS MADE $40,091,500.
Andy Warhol’s seminal portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat will be a leading highlight at Christie’s 20th Century evening sale in New York in November. It comes to market with an estimate in excess of $20 million. Warhol elevates the young Basquiat to his pantheon of cultural icons which includes Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. The work celebrates the remarkable friendship between the two artists. Thought to be the only example in private hands, this rare and deeply personal work dates from 1982. Warhol’s depiction of Basquiat stands as the only known portrait executed in oxidation form, and one of its sister paintings is housed in the permanent collection of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. This example has been in the collection of Peter Brant for nearly two decades, and has been widely exhibited, most recently at the Whitney Museum’s 2018-2019 Warhol Retrospective, Andy Warhol:From A to B and Back Again.
This Dublin copper token made £1,860 against an estimate of £40-60 at Dix Noonan Webb’s sale of tokens, tickets and passes in London. It was one of a number of Irish tokens from the Collection of Barry Woodside. The 63 lots had a pre-sale estimate of £7,000 and achieved a total of £27,361. It was 100% sold. The highest price was for this token depicting a horse and jockey and stamped James Large. He is believed to have been the inn holder at the Horse and Jockey, 26 Lincoln Place in 1855. It was bought by a private collector in the Irish Republic.
THIS is an Irish Georgian economy dining table. Comprised of a fold over tea table, a double drop leaf table and a single drop leaf table it can function three ways. Fully extended it measures three metres in length. Each table is raised on ring turned legs with rounded pad feet. It comes up at Hegarty’s live online auction from Bandon, Co. Cork on October 10 with an estimate of €2,000-€3,000.
The international autumn selling season gets underway in earnest this month. Major auction houses have been issuing previews of what to expect. Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening sale in London on October 14, to coincide with the Frieze and Frieze Masters art fairs, will be headed by what they cheerfully describe as the most famous artwork of the 21st century, Banksy’s Love is in the Bin. Global news and instant art history happened when Girl with a Balloon was shredded just after the hammer came down on a million pound bid in 2018. It was then authenticated by Banksy and given a new title of Love is in the Bin. The new owner decided the wise thing to do was bank on Banksy and kept it. It now comes to market with an estimate of £4 million – £6 million (€4.67 million – €7.01 million).
Love is in the Bin by Banksy. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £18.5 MILLION
This is the dawning of the age of minorities and in what will be an undoubted shot in the arm for black transgender women artists MGM resorts will sell their Picasso’s in Las Vegas on October 23 and build a new collection with a focus of diversity. The art market of the future will feature artists from a more diverse range of backgrounds, particularly from groups who have been discriminated against. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Because it Hurts the Lungs (1986) will be a highlight at Christie’s live and livestreamed 20th/21st Century evening sale including Thinking Italian in London on October 15. The title of the work is taken from a cryptic quote by Leonardo: “Why the thunderbolt kills a (man and) does not wound him, and if the man blew his nose he would not die. Because it hurts the lungs”. Winston Churchill, whose Tower at Koutoubia Mosque” sold for a record £8.3 million in March, will highlight Christie’s Modern British art evening auction in London on October 20. The Bridge at Aix en Provence was gifted to the Swiss paint manufacturer Willy Sax, who supplied Churchill with his artistic materials and would become a lifelong friend. It is now estimated at £1.5-£2.5 million (€1.75-€2.92 million).As part of a global expansion Bonhams has just opened its first dedicated saleroom on the Continent at Rue de la Paix in the heart of the luxury district in Paris. There will be a sale of Antiquities next Thursday (October 7). This will be followed one week later by a sale of Post War and Contemporary art.
