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The combined total for Sotheby’s flagship summer sales in Paris, Geneva, New York and Hong Kong has reached almost US$900 million. In Hong Kong last week 3,794 lots sold across 17 auctions in seven days. The re-scheduled spring sales brought in US$411 million with global participation from nearly 40 countries and 90% of lots sold over the phone, on the internet or through absentee bids. Sanyu’s Quatre Nus was sold fr US$33.3 million after a four-way ten-minute bidding battle.
A landmark of Irish printed literature, a fine collection of Cork silhouettes and a print of a sorry massacre at Rathcormac, Co. Cork in 1834 are among the lots at Fonsie Mealy’s timed online collectors sale which runs until July 15. An Incunabula – a book printed before 1501 – is always a rarity. This first edition of the first book by an Irish author to write for a printing press rather than the scriptorum dates to November 1497 and was printed in Venice. The author is Archbishop Maurice O’Fihely of Tuam, a native of Baltimore in west Cork. O’Fihely, a Franciscan, provided major commentary on the investigation of Scottish Franciscan Blessed John Duns, known as Duns Scotus, into Aristotle’s metaphysical problems. Together with Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, Duns Scotus is regarded as one of the three most important philosopher theologians of Western Europe in the High Middle Ages. O’Fihely, taught in Milan and Padua and became censor of the press in Venice. He is probably the first Irishman to play a major role in the new world of printing. Appointed Archbishop of Tuam by Pope Julius II in 1506, he returned to Ireland in 1512 and died the following year. This first edition is lot 311 of the sale and is estimated at €8,000-€12,000.
The estimate of €400-€600 on three caricature silhouettes of Parnell and Kitty O’Shea may turn out to be conservative given the epic nature of the scandal of an affair which led to his downfall as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The silhouettes by Cork lithographer and silhouettist Stephen O’Driscoll (c1825-1895) depict the pair at Brighton in the sunshine, on a moonlight tryst and showing Parnell trying to climb up to her balcony unaware that her husband is watching.Lot 458 is a collection of 18 O’Driscoll silhouettes highlighting local celebrities and events. Most are captioned and some have pencilled notes identifying various individuals. Among them are a pair of Cork butter merchants, Sir John Arnott, brewer at Fitton St. and 91 South Mall, B.J. Alcock, grocer 75 Patrick St., Charles K.D. Tanner M.D. Lapps Quay, William J. Cummins M.D, 11 South Mall, Matthew P. Bolster, grocer, 79 Patrick St., Edward G. Ashe, vet, 36 Georges St., Paul Madden, grocer and wine merchant, Bridge St., Richard O’Callaghan M.D. 40 South Mall and Sir George Colthurst, 6th Bart (1850-1925). The set is estimated at €1,000-€1,500.Lot 478 is an Irish tithe print entitled The Massacre at Gortroe. The hand coloured lithographic print after a drawing by Fr. Mat Horgan depicts one of the most infamous battles of the Tithe wars in Ireland between 1830-36. This was mostly a campaign of civil disobedience because of the imposition of tithes on the mostly catholic population for the upkeep of the Church of Ireland. There was sporadic violence. On December 18, 1834 the massacre at Gortroe, otherwise known as the Rathcormac massacre, took place when a force of 100 soldiers fired on 250 locals on the order of Archdeacon William Ryder who was attempting to collect his tithes. This resulted in the deaths of 20 residents. The litho is estimated at €200-€300.There are sporting programmes including the All-Ireland Hurling Finals of 1946, ’49, ’50, ’52, ’56, ’58, ’60 and ’63, cinema posters, banknotes, cheques, literature, coins, whiskeys and a variety of other collectibles among 632 lots. The timed auction ends from 2 pm on July 15.
Roy Lichtenstein’s Nude with Joyous Painting was the top lot at Christie’s global sale of the 20th century today. It made $46,242,500 in a worldwide auction that realised $420,941,042. The live streamed sale kicked off in Hong Kong before moving on to Paris, London and finally New York.
Guillaume Cerutti, Chief Executive Officer, Christie’s remarked: “Today’s sale sends three important messages for now and for the future: despite a challenging economic environment, the demand for works of art of great quality remains very strong; the market is more global than ever, with significant activity from the Americas but also from Europe and Asia; and innovation and adaptability is key – our clients have embraced our creative presentation and sale format combining live and online experiences.”
An excessively rare piece of Irish silver, the Commonwealth/Charles II two-handled porringer, comes up at Whyte’s Eclectic Collector sale in Dublin on July 25. Known as the ‘IS’ Porringer and with the maker’s mark unidentified it was made in Dublin around 1659/60. The piece is of plain form with scroll handles and engraved ‘IS’ within a wreath. It was sold for £3,000 (the equivalent of €61,000 in 2020) by How of Edinburgh at the 1967 Grosvenor House Antique Dealers’ Fair and is now estimated at 50,000-70,000.
The sale features a wealth of historically important material including The Wolfe Tone Archive, The Thomas Ashe Archive, 1798 and 1916 Proclamations, 1916 Rising medals, uniforms and weapons, collectibles from the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, including the archive of Loyalist leader William ‘Plum’ Smith and a unique collection of ephemera related to Count John McCormack. Part 1 of the sale on July 25 at Freemason’s Hall, Molesworth St. in Dublin will be followed on July 26 by a timed online only auction.
Cow (FS II.12A) by Andy Warhol, one of around 100 signed copies of a 1979 screenprint, features at Gormleys online auction in Belfast on July 21. The estimate is €9,000-€13,000. There are works by leading Irish artists like James Humbert Craig, Charles McAuley, Markey Robinson, and Neil Shawcross. The Loop, Cushendun, a stunning lakeside scene by Craig, is estimated at €3,200-€4,200.
FROM Rembrandt to Richter Sotheby’s announced the second headline work of its major cross-category summer evening auction in London on 28 July. Gerhard Richter’s Wolken (fenster) (Clouds (window)) is an immersive skyscape with an estimate of £9-12 million. Richter’s skyscape reinvents the sublime landscapes of predecessors like Constable, Turner and Caspar David Friedrich, channelling their works into a new contemporary vision, in an effort establish a legitimate place for painting in the post-photo age. The resulting abstract, almost minimalist work, is painted not from life but from a photograph.
From Rembrandt, ‘the first modern painter’, to Richter, who has earned his position as one of today’s great contemporary artists by drawing upon the inheritance of the past, this auction will span over 500 years of art history, drawing the Old Masters together with 19th century, Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary artists.
A first edition of The Crescent Moon, a 1913 book by the world renowned Bengali Poet Tagore Rabindranath Tagore with an introduction by the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, comes up at Fonsie Mealy’s summer collectors sale online until July 15. They met in 1912 and Yeats was instrumental in promoting Tagore to western audiences. Song Offerings was published by MacMillan and Co. and the book is estimated at 100-150.
Suffused with the blazing light and color of the Mediterranean Plage à Agrigente by Nicolas de Staël will highlight the Parisian section of ONE: a Global Sale of the 20th Century at Christie’s on July 10. Launching in Hong Kong, the sale will then transition to auctioneers in Paris and London, concluding in New York.
Plage à Agrigente captures the memory of the landscape around the Ancient Greek city of Agrigento in Southern Sicily, which the artist had visited during the summer of 1953. This exquisite work from one of Nicolas de Staël’s most celebrated and important series was unveiled at Paul Rosenberg’s New York gallery in 1954. The painting has since been featured in some of de Staël’s most important posthumous exhibitions, including major retrospectives at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam in 1965, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1966 and the Tobu Art Museum in Tokyo in 1997.
Within weeks of smuggling guns from Germany to the Irish Volunteers on board the Asgard in 1914 Robert Erskine Childers was called up. His call up papers were delivered to the headquarters of the Irish Volunteers, a move akin today to asking a white supremacist to speak at a Black Lives Matter rally. The author of The Riddle of the Sands became a decorated British naval officer. His sword in gilt brass and leather scabbard is lot 91 at Mullen’s Collector’s Cabinet auction in Bray next Saturday (July 11). Engraved “R E Childers” it is estimated at €3,000-€5,000. Robert Erskine Childers was executed in 1922 by the nascent Irish Free State during the Civil War. Erskine Childers, the Fianna Fail politician who became Ireland’s fourth president, was his son.
The Collector’s Cabinet is a postponed sale originally scheduled for March 28. The 572 lots can be viewed online at The Saleroom. Among them are a copy of Error of Judgement by Chris Mullin signed by the author, the Birmingham Six and solicitor Gareth Peirce. It is estimated at €300-€500. There are 110 lots of Irish and international bank notes from the collection of Patrick Browne, secretary of the Cork Philatelic Society who began collecting banknotes in the 1990’s. Estimates range from €80-€2,500. Among the scarcest of the sporting lots are a competitors badge from the 1908 London Olympic Games and an officials badge from the 1924 Paris Games, immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire.
A set of 12 William IV rosewood dining chairs with an estimate of €3,000-€5,000 is the most expensively estimated lot at the James Adam At Home online sale in Dublin on July 5. Bidding options for this 347 lot sale of antique furniture, paintings, books, jewellery, silver and collectibles are available at Adams. A c1780 Limerick silver tablespoon by Morris Fitzgerald is estimated at €300-€400 and a pair of large Meissen models of exotic birds carry an estimate of €1,000-€2,000.There are Waterford Crystal chandeliers, rugs, mirrors, Sevres urns, a wine cooler and a 19th century giltwood marble topped console table. A selection of Chinese export porcelain will generate interest. One of the more unusual lots is Robert Morrissons (1782-1834) 19th century dictionary of the Chinese language. In three parts this is estimated at €3,000-€4,000. A Russian Gardener porcelain figure of a glazier made in Moscow in the 19th century is estimated at €1,000-€1,500. UPDATE: The dictionary sold for a hammer price of 12,000, the Gardener porcelian made 2,800 and the chairs made 3,000.
