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Baigneuse Assise, a soft ground etching by Pierre Renoir, comes up at the James Adam online Works on Paper sale which runs until August 10. From an edition of 1,000 a complete with the artist’s stamped signature, it is estimated at 800-1,200. The sale of 435 lots includes old Irish maps, engraved views and etchings, handcoloured Cuala Press prints, art, various documents, photographs and books.
THIS early 20th century set of eight ship’s ash and beech folding chairs come up at Sotheby’s online Dining In auction which runs to August 12. Some legs are branded PSN which almost certainly relates to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company which provided a passenger and mail service between Liverpool and Argentina from 1877 to 1920. With later striped canvas seats they are estimated at £2,500-3,500. UPDATE: THESE SOLD FOR £11,340
Truman Capote’s final typescript for Breakfast at Tiffany’s sold for £377,000 at Sotheby’s Books and Manuscripts sale in London on August 4. It was covered in handwritten edits including the last minute change to his protagonist’s name to Holly Golightly. Until the very final draft Holly was known throughout as Connie Gustafson. This typescript was submitted to Random House, who published all of Capote’s major works, in May 1958, just before Capote departed for a sojourn in Greece. It had been estimated at £120,000-180,000.
Online auctions at Sotheby’s, where year to day sales in 2020 have reached $2.5 billion, have already exceeded $285 million. This is driven by innovation and adaptation in time of pandemic. Sotheby’s report more than 30% new bidders across all sales and that more than 30% of all bidders and buyers are under 40. Nearly 20% of new bidders and buyers are from Asia.
Private sales have totalled $575 million and live summer auctions in June and July achieved $1.2 billion.
Regarded by some as the ultimate sporting collectible, Michael Jordans game worn sneakers are on offer at Christie’s until August 13. With a total of 11 lots this landmark online sale offers the most comprehensive sneaker record of Michael Jordans era defining Chicago Bulls career. Beginning in 1985 with the release of the Air Jordan 1, Nike’s Jordan Brand has been at the forefront of a pop-culture movement that has spanned the globe. Michael Jordan and his signature line of footwear are the foundational pillars of modern basketball and the worldwide phenomenon of sneaker collecting. A portion of the proceeds from one lot is designated to the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People legal defence fund which seeks to eliminate disparities and achieve racial justice. Pictured here is the top lot, the Air Jordan 1 High Shattered Backboard signed sneaker from 1985, estimated at $650,000-$850,000. UPDATE: THESE SOLD FOR $615,000.
Art, antique furniture, collectibles and toys will all come under the hammer at Dolan’s two day summer auction in Connemara on Bank Holiday Monday and on August 4. Art on offer ranges from contemporary work by John Shinnors to some Connemara scenes by Kenneth Webb. There is a wide range of both established and emerging artists and no shortage of landscapes from the hugely scenic area around Ballyconneely like a watercolour entitled Market Day, Roundstone by Lady Kate Dobbin.
This annual summer event in Connemara has a big local following and always attracts plenty of the visitors from around the country who holiday here. Among the 310 lots on offer on Monday is a Victorian writing table by the London firm of Howard and Sons in Oregon pine. This company specialised in bespoke furniture and this piece comes complete with an inbuilt leather foot rest. Curiosities include a mahogany Victorian penny slot machine from a 19th century pub and there is a Chipperfields Circus model set by Corgi and an early 20th century rocking horse.One of the more expensively estimated lots, at €10,000-€14,000, is The Sparrow, a 1984 oil on canvas laid on board by the renowned Limerick artist John Shinnors. There is a bronze by John Behan entitled Launching the Currach. An earlier treatment of the local area is Carraroe, Connemara by Charles Lamb. There is work by well known artists like Sean Keating, Markey Robinson, George Campbell, Maurice MacGonigal, Robert Egginton, Norman Teeling, Cecil Maguire, Arthur Maderson and Mark O’Neill.
A questionnaire filled in by a young Oscar Wilde comes up at Sotheby’s online Summer Miscellany sale of Books and Manuscripts which closes on August 4. Recording preferences across 39 questions he responds as follows:
Your idea of happiness? ‘Absolute power over men’s minds, even if accompanied by chronic toothache’
Your idea of misery? ‘Living a poor and respectable life in an obscure village’.
What is your dream? ‘Getting my hair cut’
‘What is your aim in life?’ ‘Success: fame or even notoriety’.
Wilde was in his early twenties when he contributed to the album of “Mental Photographs” in 1877. He was still at Oxford and yet to publish a book, but had already established a keen following. It is signed grandiosely with his full name, ‘Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde’.
It is from the collection of actor and director Steven Berkoff (b.1937), famed for his villainous on-screen roles including General Orlov in the James Bond classic, Octopussy (1983). Berkoff began collecting Oscar Wilde material around the time he directed Wilde’s great tragedy, Salome, in the late 1980s. The show opened to acclaim at The Gate Theatre, Dublin, on the sixtieth anniversary of Salome’s first controversial public viewing there in 1928, and went on to sell out at London’s National Theatre, before travelling to Japan, Germany and beyond. The estimate is £40,000-60,000.
A portrait of a young woman by Sir Peter Paul Rubens was the top lot at Christie’s Classic Art evening sale in London. It made £3,965,250 in a sale which brought in £21,157,250. There was global participation with buyers from 22 countries across five continents. The auction was sold 90% by value and 74% by lot.
THE summer art and collectibles sales by Dolan’s at Ballyconneely in Connemara on August 3 and 4 are now on view, and the auctions will be online only at 12.30 p.m. on each day. There is a range of Irish art, including various treatments of the landscapes of the west of Ireland, included among work by established and emerging artists.
There was a welcome shot in the arm for the fundraising efforts of a hospital in Bethlehem this evening thanks to a very generous charitable donation by the anonymous street artist Banksy. His trio of found seascape paintings reworked into a pointed response to the refugee crisis sold for £2,235,000 at Sotheby’s cross departmental global online Rembrandt to Richter sale. The tripartite work by Banksy, Mediterranean Sea View 2017, features empty orange life jackets symbolising European bound migrants who drowned.
Donated by the artist the paintings had been estimated at £800,000-1.2 million. They were the focus of spirited bidding. Since being created they have hung above the fireplace of Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem in Jerusalem’s West Bank. The proceeds will go towards a new acute stroke unit and children’s rehabilitation equipment at the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation.
The flagship summer Rembrandt to Richter sale realised £150 million.
