One of the largest and most complete T Rex specimens ever discovered is set to become the most valuable dinosaur ever at auction at Sotheby’s in New York on July 14. Gus, a 67 million year old Tyrannosaurus Rex, is estimated at $20 million – $30 million (€17.48 million – €26.22 million). Excavated over field seasons in 2021, 2022, and 2023 the fossil was discovered by Thomas Heitkamp and his team on land owned by the late Gary “Gus” Licking, a cattle rancher in Harding County, South Dakota. After years of finding teeth and bone fragments on his land Licking brought in the professionals, who named discovery after him. Gus has a body length of around 38 feet and a height of twelve and a half feet. Photo credit Matthew Sherman.
A silkscreen print by John Ffrench (1928-2010) at Adams. UPDATE: THIS MADE 460 AT HAMMER
The timed online picture sale at Adam’s which ends from 11 am on July 14 offers a highly affordable selection of everything from pencil drawings by Mainie Jellett and prints by Anne Madden and Alice Maher to mixed media and charcoal works by Barrie Cooke and a lithograph by Tony O’Malley. The sale kicks off with a selection from Swedish born ceramicist, sculptor, graphic artist and designer Marianne Agren McElroy (1926-2006), an original creative voice in the Ireland of the 1950’s, ’60’s and ’70’s. Auction estimates range from €50 to €5,000. The silkscreen print by John Ffrench illustrated here has an estimate of €200-€400. Many lots are offered without a reserve.
Yeats Family Violin. Labelled D. Nicolas Ainé Mirecourt’ c1810-20. UPDATE: THIS MADE £5,000
Lot 479 at the sale by Dominic Winter auctioneers in Cirencester on July 16 is an early 19th-century French Mirecourt violin, from the private collection of the family of Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet W. B. Yeats. The violin was acquired by ‘Chapel Violins’ from the Yeats Family Collection auction conducted by Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers in Castlecomer in November 2017. It was from the Dalkey home of Michael Yeats (1921–2007), a former senator and the son of W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) and his wife the harpist Gráinne Yeats (1925–2013). Since its acquisition, the violin has remained on display within the ‘Chapel Violins’ workshop as part of its private collection, where it has served as an example of exceptional early French violin-making and also as an instrument connected with one of Ireland’s most celebrated literary families. The estimate is £6,000-£8,000.
This oil on canvas by Liam O’Neill is at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Irish art which runs until July 20. Turning the Sod is estimated at €10,000-€15,000. The auction offers 255 lots including work by Donald Teskey, John Behan, Dorothy Cross, William Crozier, George Campbell, Tim Goulding, Martin Finnin, Kaws, Louis le Brocquy, Arthur Maderson, Charles Tyrrell and John Shinnors. The catalogue is online.
An Italian 1970’s mobile cocktail trolley. UPDATE: THIS MADE 360 AT HAMMER
f you are dreaming of outdoor summer drinks in warming up Ireland then a striking mobile cocktail trolley on casters might fill the bill. The selection of vintage mid century modernist furniture at the online art and design auction at de Veres until July 15 includes a retro Italian 1970’s mobile cocktail bar which with little effort could be wheeled to a patio in the heat. The estimate is just €400-€600.
A 1960’s rosewood Italian sideboard with an estimate of €800-€1,200, a pair of Magis Bombo aluminium bar stools (€400-€600), a pair of French space age floor lamps (€400-€600), a burr walnut dining table attributed to Willy Rizzo (€600-€900) and a circular table by Arne Jacobsen (€200-€300) all feature at de Veres. There is no in person viewing thugh lots can be viewed by appointment. The auction of 242 lots features a large selection of artworks and the catalogue is online.
A 1960’s rosewood Italian sideboard. UPDATE: THIS MADE 650 AT HAMMER
Oliver Barker, chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, conducting the sale of the Lewis collection.
Cool art generated real heat in the midst of a scorching London heatwave. All sorts of records were broken at Sotheby’s night to remember sales of the Lewis Collection and Modern and Contemporary art.
Four auctions realised £420,488,006 (€487,177,483), the highest total for any season of sales ever staged in Europe.
Sotheby’s sales were led by Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection where 25 paintings made £296 million (€342.95 million). Modigliani’s Seated Nude with Necklace sold for £48.2 million (€55.84 million) and led the nine works which sold for over £10 million (€11.59 million). Among them was art by Picasso, Klimt, Egon Schiele, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.
Amedeo Modigliani – Nu assis au collier sold for £48.2 million (€55.84 million).
Competitive and deliberate bidding from around the world lasted for nearly two hours. This was the most valuable single owner sale in London’s auction history. Bidders came from 45 countries. Asian collectors accounted for over one third of the value of the sale.
The collection was assembled over more than two decades by 89 year old former Tottenham Hotspur owner Joe Lewis, noted for his significant impact on the art market through his extensive collection and strategic transactions, and his daughter Vivienne. The Lewis collecting philosophy is centred on assembling museum quality masterpieces. Lewis sold his stake in Christie’s, where he was the largest single shareholder, to Francois Pinault in 1998 after a share price surge. Committed to the avant-garde painters of today the Lewis family intend to continue their collecting journey into the future.
Claude Monet – Nymphéas sold for £40.8 million (€47.27 million).
Fuelled by stellar works by Monet, Rothko, Hockney and Kandinsky the Modern and Contemporary auction which followed the Lewis auction brought in another £97 million (€112.38 million). Bidding was again deliberate as opposed to speculative and 40 lots took two hours to sell. The top lot was Monet’s Nymphéas (water-lilies) which made £40.8 million (€47.27 million) to become the most valuable Impressionist work sold at auction in Europe in over a decade.
The combined total of £393.4 million (€455.79) for the two sales set a new single night auction record for Europe. Next day the Modern day auction including art from the Lewis collection totalled £17.7 million (€20.51 million) and the Contemporary day auction added another £9.3 million (€10.77 million).
Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Gertrud Loew sold for £36.1 million (€41.83 million)
The extraordinary Lewis collection traced a line from Viennese portraiture to the painters from the School of London with modern figurative painting at its core. The overall total of 47 works sold from the collection came to £306.6 million (€355.23 million). Together with the £35.8 million (€41.48. million) for the four School of London works sold at Sotheby’s in March led by Francis Bacon’s 1972 self portrait the combined total for the Lewis collection sold at Sotheby’s this year is £342.4 million (€396.7 million).
These sales continued an emerging trend where growth in the global art market is concentrated at the top. Single owner collections of museum quality works continue to be the market driver.
Pamela Leonard (B.1940) – Evening in Howth Etching 18/30. UPDATE: THIS MADE 150 AT HAMMER
This etching by Pamela Leonard is lot 89 at Adam’s timed online picture auction which runs until July 14. The estimate is 300-500. The sale of 230 lots features a wide variety of artists including Oisin Kelly, Graham Knuttel, Markey Robinson, Nano Reid, Barry Cooke, Mainie Jellett, Patrick Scott and Tony O’Malley and many more at very affordable prices. The catalogue is online.
A Currency Commission Royal Bank of Ireland Ploughman’s note dated May 6, 1929. UPDATE: THIS MADE £6,500 AT HAMMER
Noonan’s of Mayfair say that three extremely rare banknotes at their sale on July 8 are arguably the finest set of Irish notes ever offered at auction. The trio of extremely special notes – a set of Ploughman notes (£10, £5 and £1) issued by the Royal Bank of Ireland, all bearing serial number 000001 are expected to fetch £8,000-10,000; £6,000-7,000 and £4,000-5,000 respectively. Lots 405-407 all bear the serial number 000001. They will be among the highlights of Noonans auction of British and Irish Banknotes.
Ted Edmunds, banknote specialist at Noonans commented: “Given the rarity, condition and serial number, we believe this set of £1, £5 and £10 are arguably the finest set of Irish notes ever offered at auction.” Describing it as about uncirculated and a fantastic banknote in scarcely believable condition the catalogue description continues: …a glorious example of a £10 Ploughman with an incredible serial number 1, a joy to see one of the most iconic banknotes in the world in all its glory, magnificent!
UPDATE: The three banknotes made a combined hammer price of £34,500 (€40,482). They had been estimated in the region of £20,000 (€23,470). Noonans said they were all bought by the same overseas buyer.
Pelé’s 1962 World Cup winners medal will come under the hammer at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles on July 9, just ten days before the current World Cup final. The estimate is $200,000-$400,000. From Pelé, Diego Maradona, and Lionel Messi to LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Serena Williams, and Roger Maris, Sports Legends: The Pitch To The Court at Julien’s traces the evolution of athletic greatness through museum-worthy pieces connected to defining eras and unforgettable moments across soccer, basketball, tennis, football, and baseball. Nearly 350 pieces spanning generations of the greatest athletes offered in this auction form an extraordinary collection of match-worn jerseys, historic awards, signed memorabilia, tournament programmes, and personal effects tied to some of the most celebrated names in sports history.
A Kylian Mbappé match worn 2022 Paris St Germain jersey is estimated at $3,000-$5,000, a Lionel Messi signed Argentina jersey has an estimate of $2,000-$3,000. Diego Maradona’s match worn 1978 Argentinos Junior rookies year jersey and Baldocchi’s 1970 Brazil World Cup winners medal are each estimated at $10,000-$20,000. A game worn LeBron James signed rookie year Cavaliers jersey is estimated at $300,000-$500,000.
[BRONTË, Emily (1818-1848) and Anne (1820-1849)] Wuthering Heights. A Novel. By Ellis Bell. – Agnes Grey. A Novel, by Acton Bell. London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1847 sold for £1,206,500/ €1,399,540 setting a new world auction record for the author, as well as the highest price ever achieved for 19th-century literature and for any printed book by a woman.
A truly exceptional first edition of Wuthering Heights in the original cloth binding and of Agnes Grey by Brontë sisters Emily and Anne sold for £1.2 million at Christie’s Exceptional Sale in London today. Preserved within the same historic house library since shortly after publication in 1847, it is perhaps the finest example remaining in private hands of a masterpiece of English literature. No textually complete copy has appeared at auction in the publisher’s cloth binding since 1908.
Although both Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey were written and accepted for publication before Charlotte had completed Jane Eyre, it was the latter work which was published first, in October 1847. The immediate and enormous success of Jane Eyre prompted Thomas Cautley Newby to bring forward the release of the present works in order to capitalise on the phenomenon. The exact number of copies printed is unknown, but it was suggested by Charlotte that the run was limited to just 250. Of these, examples preserved in any form of publisher’s binding are exceedingly scarce, with those in full cloth being the rarest of all.
