 |
 |
A watercolour of Samuel Beckett by Louis le Brocquy is among the highlights at Gormley’s evening online art auction in Belfast on February 23). It is estimated at €19,100-€22,750. A bronze standing Irish wolfhound by Stephen McKeown is estimated at €11,500-€17,000. There is a print by Damien Hirst, a lithograph by Salvador Dali and work by Maurice Wilks, Charles McAuley, Brian Ballard, Gladys McCabe, Markey Robinson and other well known Irish artists.
A little bit of Ireland in the form of a stone from the Giant’s Causeway comes up at Victor Mee’s online Decorative Interiors sale on March 3 and 4. Stones from the Giant’s Causeway were used for hundreds of years for housebuilding around the north west coast. They can been seen in old stone walls and are regularly found when ancient houses fall down. The three stones coming up as lots 436-438 in this sale were once part of a structure located near the causeway. Each one is estimated at 200-400.
The Giants Causeway was a commercial quarry from the 1940’s until the 1960’s. A quarry a short distance away with the same stones from the same lava flow was called Craignahulliar. It was worked by Portrush Columnar Basalt Company Ltd until the 1980’s. The basalt columns formed from the same lava flows 60 million years ago, which cooled slowly forming the unusual shapes.
An Irish George II mahogany side table with a top estimate of $50,000 sold for $130,000 at Brunk Auctions in North Carolina on February 12. The c1760 table was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago show Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690-1840 in 2015. It is illustrated in Irish Furniture, Yale University Press by the Knight of Glin and James Peill. The table has a single board mahogany top on carved stand with leaf, scroll, and rocaille ornament in deep relief and a carved winged mask of Venus issuing from a shell. Based in Asheville, North Carolina Brunk Auctions is a national auction service with an international clientele specialising in fine art and antiquities.
At the same sale an Irish George II made $70,000; an Irish carved figured bookcase cabinet made $30,000 and two pairs of chairs from Russborough House made $44,000 and $46,000 respectively.
A medal awarded to Lieutenant Basil Worswick, killed on April 29, 1916 at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin during the height of the Easter Rising sold for £1,300 at Dix Noonan Webb in London today. He was shot by a guard, who thought he was a Sinn Fein spy. The 1914-15 Star plus was expected to fetch £400-500. Worswick went with the 2nd Battalion to Ireland to help quell the disturbance in the Dublin. On the night of April 28/29 a detachment of the Dublin Fusiliers was stationed at the malt house. When the night clerk of the brewery, accompanied by Lieutenant Lucas of the King Edward’s Horse, was making his nightly round he was challenged by the very nervous guard of Royal Dubliners. Mistaken for Sinn Feiners trying to infiltrate the brewery premises, the guard shot both the night clerk and Lucas dead. Worswick heard the commotion. He arrived at the malt house to find that his fellow officer had been killed. Challenged and searched by a sergeant of the Dublin Fusiliers he rushed at him. Seeing this the guard believing Worswick to be a Sinn Fein spy, killed him instantly.
The Company Quartermaster Sergeant in charge of the party of Dublin Fusiliers, Robert Flood, was court-martialled and acquitted for the deaths of Lieutenants Lucas and Worswick. His actions were attributed to the confusion and panic of the Easter Rising. He died in action in Macedonia the following year.
A private collection of Irish art passionately collected over the past 30 years will come up at Dreweatts live online auction in Newbury, Berkshire on March 18. There is art by Gerard Dillon, William Conor, Colin Middleton, Markey Robinson, Gladys Maccabe, Maurice MacGonigal, Maurice Wilks, Frank McKelvey, Kitty Wilmer O’Brien, Henry Healy, Basil Blackshaw, Graham Knuttel, Sean McSweeney, Ciaran Clear and Felim Egan.
This Chinese Chippendale display cabinet, possibly by Hicks of Dublin, dates to c1890-1910. The piece is unsigned, but that is not unusual with furniture made by Hicks during this period. It comes up at Sean Eacrett’s auction of 856 lots online on February 27 as lot 634 with an estimate of 3,000-5,000. The catalogue is online at easyliveauction.com. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Mourning jewellery belonging to Queen Victoria will come up at Sotheby’s in London on March 24 as part of the family collection of Patricia Mountbatten, Victoria’s great, great grand daughter. Over the course of her long reign Queen Victoria suffered many losses spending decades mourning not only her husband Albert, but also her mother and three of her children. During this time, she adorned herself in black crepe and wearable mementos of her loved ones.
On December 14, 1878, the anniversary of Prince Albert’s death, Victoria’s third child Alice died of diphtheria at the age of 35. Princess Alice’s youngest daughter, Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, had also died of the same disease at the age of four. Three of the brooches mark Alice’s tragic passing including: an onyx and seed pearl button commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1879 with a portrait miniature of Princess Alice (£1,000-1,500), an agate and pearl pendant with a lock of hair inscribed ‘from Grandmama VR’ as gift from the Queen to Alice’s daughter, Princess Victoria (£1,000-1,500) and a hardstone, enamel and diamond cross centring on an onyx heart with Alice beneath a coronet (£2,000-3,000).
The fourth was commissioned by Prince Albert circa 1861 for Queen Victoria to mark the death of her mother. An agate and diamond pendant, it opens to reveal a miniature photograph of the Queen’s mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, later Duchess of Kent, with an inscription by the Prince Consort (£1,000-1,500).
Joseph Gibson, John Williams, James Warner, William Reynolds, Carden Terry Jane Williams, John Nicholson, Joseph Johns, William Ward and William Egan are names laden with meaning for collectors of Irish Provincial silver. They are all represented in the James Adam At Home timed online auction which will begin to close at 11 am on February 23. It is unusual to have such an array of Cork and Limerick makers in one auction.A pair of chased sauceboats by William Egan is dated to 1911. Otherwise all the pieces on offer – bowls, jugs, ladles, beakers, sugar tongs, serving spoons – range in date from 1760 to 1820. Estimates are from €120 for a c1820 fiddle pattern serving spoon by Joseph Gibson to €800, the top estimate for three lots: a pair of c1760 Hanoverian patterned spoons by Joseph Johns of Limerick; a pair of hook handle serving spoons by the same maker and a c1790 silver beaker by John Nicholson. Limerick silver is even rarer than Cork silver and a soup ladle by William Ward of Limerick is estimated at €300-€500.There are 431 lots on offer including more than 100 lots of furniture and 74 lots of jewellery. UPDATE: A pair of Hanoverian spoons c1760 and a pair of hook handled serving spoons c1760 both by Joseph Johns of Limerick made 4,200 and 2,000 respectively at hammer. A silver helmeted cream jug by James Warner, Cork made 1,500 and a c1790 sugar bowl by John Williams, Cork made 1,400.
If the Cold War relics auction taking place today reveals anything it is that all’s fair in love and war. Deceit trumps love in this St. Valentine’s weekend sale live and online at Juliens in in L.A. More than 400 artefacts used by American astronauts, Cuban revolutionaries and Soviet spies feature in a sale which includes everything from the KGB Espionage Museum in New York – almost. A lipstick gun routinely provided to KGB femmes fatales was pulled from the auction at the last minute. Reason unspecified. In the land of spies a kiss of death trumps pepper spray every time. Never fear. The catalogue offers a huge variety of ways to gather evidence and extract revenge when allies become enemies and love goes south. The pre digital age was rich in methods to place listening devices, bugs, hidden cameras and microphones. How much more, one has to wonder, can they do now? Can anything be kept secret in 2021? In a lockdown world of strained relationships a gun designed to look like a tube of lipstick might be seen in some quarters as a crude though stealthy weapon of surprise from yesteryear. The sale offers lethal purses, a dinner plate with a microphone bug, cameras and microphones disguised as buttons, a Soviet version of the Enigma cipher machine known as Fialka, all sorts of ways of looking and listening to what is going on in hotel rooms, coins with hidden compartments and a replica of the deadly syringe umbrella believed to have been used to carry out the assassination of Bulgarian dissident author Georgi Markov in London in 1978. The auction takes place over two sessions today, at 10 am and 1 pm Pacific Time. Bidders need to register in advance.
UPDATE: The auction attracted bidders from around the globe. The top lot was a Soviet KGB spy purse known as “The Fly” which sold for $32,000 nearly thirteen times its original estimate of $2,500. A Soviet spy coin with a hidden compartment made $25,600, one hundred twenty-eight times its original estimate of $200 and a rare Soviet version of the Enigma code cipher machine known as the Fialka sold for $22,400.
Warrior by Jean Michel Basquiat is poised to become the most expensive Western artwork ever offered in Asia. It comes up at a live and livestreamed single lot sale by Christie’s in Hong Kong on March 23 with an estimate of US$31-41 million. The evening sale – We Are All Warriors – The Basquiat Auction – is part of the spring season of 20th century sales at Christie’s.
Painted in 1982 Basquiat’s Warrior is a commanding and authoritative portrait that amply demonstrates why the artist is regarded as one of the most important painters of the last half century. It comes up at a sale format that highlights Basquiat’s international appeal.
