The first published edition of James Joyce’s Dubliners comes up at an online sale of Fine Books and Manuscripts at Sotheby’s in New York until July 16. One of a number of works by Joyce in the auction it is estimated at $80,000-$120,000. It is one of approximately 746 copies bound in the publisher’s maroon cloth, with the very rare dust-jacket. A ticket pasted to the rear states that it was de-acidified in 1989. Only six copies in jacket have appeared at auction in the past forty-five years. Sotheby’s say that despite the restorations noted, this is an attractive, near-fine copy.
The sale offers first editions of A Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses by Joyce as well as a letter from Oscar Wilde to Aimee Daniell Beringer and a copy of Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance. The catalogue is online.
Paul Henry, R.H.A. (1876-1958) Mountains and Lake, Connemara, painted in 1934,
There was a new auction record for Paul Henry at Christie’s sale of the B.J. Eastwood Collection of Important Sporting and Irish pictures in London on July 9. Mountains and Lake, Connemara is a classical Henry work. Estimated at £120,000-£180,000 it sold for £622,500. The collection of 30 pictures achieved £14,187,750, more than double the pre-sale low estimate. Over 70% of works sold for over the high sale estimate.
BERNARDO BELLOTTO (VENICE 1721-1780 WARSAW)View of Verona with the Ponte delle Navi
Bernardo Bellotto’s View of Verona and Leonardo da Vinci’s Head of a Bear were the top lots at Christie’s Classic Week evening sales in London. Last night there were artists records for for Bernardo Bellotto, Adriaen van de Velde, Francesco Tironi, Gregorio di Cecco da Lucca, the Master of Sterbini Diptych, Georges de La Tour and Marco Ricci. The Exceptional Sale and the realised a combined total of £64,620,750 with registered bidders from 102 countries across 4 continents. The combined total of Classic Week sales to date is over £70 million.
This small drawing of a bear’s head by Leonardo da Vinci at Christie’s Exceptional Sale in London today is estimated at £8-12 million. It measures just 7x7cm and is among just a few drawings by the Italian Renaissance master which are still privately owned. The sketch previously belonged to British painter and collector Sir Thomas Lawrence, before being sold at Christie’s in 1860 for £2.50. It is one of fewer than eight surviving drawings by the artist still in private hands outside the Royal Collection and the Devonshire Collections at Chatsworth. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £8,857,500, A NEW WORLD RECORD FOR A DRAWING BY THE ARTIST.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 8, 2021)
Among Horses by Jack B. Yeats comes up at Christie’s live online sale of the B.J. Eastwood Collection in London on July 9 with an estimate of £400,000-600,000. Painted in 1947 it was acquired in 1994 by Barney Eastwood. The 30 lots in the sale represent B.J. Eastwood’s deep interest in Irish painting and equestrian art. B.J. Eastwood started his collection in the mid 1970s, at a time when he was particularly drawn to collection and house sales. However, it was his abiding love of sport and his eye for quality and detail which translated into an intrigue and fascination specifically with Sporting and Irish artists. He followed the great sales of the 1970s and 1980s, and over time built an outstanding collection of the genres’ greatest examples. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD. THE EASTWOOD SALE BROUGHT IN £14,187,750
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for June 18, 2021)
One of only two known surviving copies of the earliest football rules printed by the world’s first football club, Sheffield Football Club, in 1859 comes up at Sotheby’s in July. The sixteen-page pamphlet, recently discovered bound in a Victorian scrapbook, is estimated to make £50,000-70,000 in London on July 20, with bidding open online from July 12-20. Established in 1857, Sheffield Football Club predated the founding of the Football Association by six years, and is acknowledged by both the FA and FIFA as the world’s oldest football club. The formal rule-based game of football was a Victorian innovation, incubated at public schools and universities. However, it was the foundation of Sheffield Football Club that brought the game into the community.
This pamphlet is also uniquely revised to keep it up to date with developments in the laws of the game. The most significant is the hardening of the rules against handling the ball. The 1858 rules allowed the ball to be “pushed or hit with the hand” but not held (law 8), but in this copy a printed slip disallows “knocking or pushing [the ball] on”. A handwritten note finesses the throw-in, specifying that the ball must “touch the Ground before coming in Contact with any player” (law 10). A new law (law 12) is also added by hand, requiring that flags be placed four yards from each goal post (this was to allow a short-lived secondary scoring system called a rouge). These revisions must have been made before 1862, when the club issued a new rulebook that included these and other changes.
This copy of the Sheffield FC rules was preserved in a scrapbook compiled by a local clergyman, the Rev. Greville John Chester (1830-92). The club’s historic archive was sold at Sotheby’s in 2011 for £881,000.
Hugh Douglas Hamilton Triple portrait of Emma, Lady Hamilton (1765–1815), as the three Muses (£400,000-600,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE £500,000 AT HAMMER
This triple portrait by the Dublin artist Hugh Douglas Hamilton of Emma, Lady Hamilton, as the Three Muses comes up at Sotheby’s Old Master’s evening sale in London on July 7. A celebrated model, entertainer and artist’s muse; famous for her ‘Attitudes’ and her creative collaboration with international artists, particularly George Romney; her marriage to the great diplomat, antiquarian and collector Sir William Hamilton, British Envoy to Naples; and her relationship with Admiral Lord Nelson, the ‘Nation’s Hero’; Emma, Lady Hamilton was a cultural icon and European celebrity in the early nineteenth century. Born Amy Lyon, the daughter of a blacksmith from Cheshire, and later changing her name to Emma Hart, the young girl who was to become Lady Hamilton began her ascent as an actresses’ maid at the Drury Lane Theatre.
The auction includes an impressive group of early Netherlandish paintings from a Spanish private collection; masterpieces by some of the finest artists of the late 16th and 17th centuries, such as Jan Brueghel the Elder, Balthasar van der Ast and Ambrosius Bosschaert and a particularly strong offering of British works from private collections, many fresh to the market.
A collection of Communion tokens, derived from the Irish wars of religion of the mid 1600’s, comes up at a sale of Coins, Tokens and Historical Medals at Dix Noonan Webb in London on July 6 and 7. Amassed over many years by Delmas Parker, an American, the collection comprises 72 lots, totalling 455 pieces, mostly from the northern counties like Antrim, Down and Derry. Most of the towns and villages in Northern Ireland are represented in the collection. Protestants assembled in large church meetings, which served, not just as religious meetings, but also as political gatherings. To keep track of just who was attending these larger meetings, which were subject to activities of political spies and people that did not belong, communion tokens came into being. They were given to known local congregants by the priest or pastor. The tokens would be surrendered at the larger church meetings. They acted as passes, allowing members from smaller congregations to assemble in larger churches and not be deemed political spies or unrepentant sinners.
Lot 1075 is a collection of communion tokens from Co. Antrim. UPDATE: THESE MADE £240 AT HAMMER
A presentation pair of Armada pattern silver claret jugs are included in a collection of Irish silver at Dreweatts online auction in Newbury, Berkshire on July 7. Made by John Smyth and Sons of Grafton St. they were presented to Dublin Lord Mayor George Moyers in 1881. The estimate is £3,000-£5,000. Other Irish pieces in the sale include a George III silver salver, a George II cream jug, a mid 18th century silver bowl and a twin handled silver cup by Robert Calderwood.
Irish Victorian silver Armada pattern claret jugs by John Smyth, Dublin. UPDATE: THESE MADE £6,000 AT HAMMER
