A set of signed First Editions by Cormac McCarthy from the collection of his late friend Dr. Philip Murray of Sligo made hammer prices of just under 40,000 at Fonsie Mealy’s rare books and manuscripts auction in Dublin today. There was 29 lots in total. An archive of letters and pre-publication copies by the Southern American novelist of Irish extraction, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and numerous other awards, made 7,000 on the hammer, a first edition of Blood Meridian signed and inscribed by the author made 4,200, a first UK edition together with an uncorrected proof of Outer Dark made 2,600 at hammer as did a signed and inscribed first edition of Suttree.
The sale realised more than 350,000 on the hammer with 85% of lots finding buyers. The most expensive individual lot sold was The White Jug by Jack B Yeats which made 18,000 at hammer.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for December 7, 2019)
A signed archive complete with a photograph of Dr. Philip Murray and Cormac McCarthy in Sligo.
Works from an outstanding collector will come up at Christie’s An Exceptional Eye sale in Paris on December 10 and 11. The very private collector grew up in the French coungtryside and his interest in insects and minerals began at a very early age. As an adult, he would go on to collect wonders of the world including butterflies from Indonesia, fossils, meteorites, and an exceptional dinosaur skeleton. Classes in art and culture followed.
For more than ten years he successfully indulged in the antiquarian profession but his adventurous soul pushed him towards new horizons. This aesthete and scholar was deeply moved by the quality of a marble panel by Léon Indenbaum or a cabinet by Gaston-Etienne Le Bourgeois, both realised for Jacques Doucet in 1913. He was also interested in works by the German expressionists, from August Macke to Egon Schiele, as well as the delicacy of Eileen Gray’s creations.
Cécile Verdier, President of Christie’s France said: “It is an absolute joy for Christie’s to present this wonderful collection revealing the very private world of this discreet collector. A passionate character with a keen interest in all cultures, he wove very personal threads between the arts, in accordance with his specific tastes and his culture”.
Jean-Louis Gaillemin, art historian remarked: “The bold presence of a rhinoceros skeleton in the middle of the living room has the effect of shattering the conventional and the customary; this staging, which fosters a surprising and powerful discourse between the objects, reveals the taste and interests of the master of the house”.
UPDATE: The auction achieved a total of €12,502,438. The top lot was August Macke’s painting Badende Frauen (recto); Pierrot mit Tänzerpaar (verso) which was sold for €2,770,000, exceeding its high estimate.
An illuminated 1667 Charles II Charter detailing property grants in Cork city, minutes from an 1802 meeting of the Dublin Wide Streets Commissioners, a first edition of Ulysses, Republican documents from 1922-24 and Yeats family memorabilia are among a fascinating array of lots at Fonsie Mealy’s rare book sale at the Talbot Hotel, Stillorgan on December 10. The catalogue – in itself worthy of a long, slow browse because of all the avenues of exploration it opens up – list 842 lots.
The sale includes the Cormac McCarthy collection of the recently deceased Dr. Philip Murray of Sligo which spans lot 712-740. Dr. Murray, whose extraordinary collection of first editions made 275,000 at a Fonsie Mealy sale in 2016, maintained a friendship with the Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist, author and screenwriter and the catalogue contains a photo of the pair of them taken in Sligo.
The catalogue cover is Edward Bunting’s 1840 work The Ancient Music of Ireland arranged for piano forte, there is a fascinating archive of almost 500 Quaker letters in Ireland between 1770 and 1830 and signed first editions by many famous authors. Lot 481 is John T. Gilbert’s 1874-1884 Account of Facsimiles of National Manuscripts of Ireland from the earliest specimens to AD 719 in four volumes. It contains some documents which were destroyed when the Public Records Office was burned down in 1922. The illuminated Charles II Charter was published to satisfy demands of the 49 officers who served in the royalist army in Ireland, remained loyal to the king and were not granted lands by the Cromwellian government. It lists property in Cork city held by catholics in 1641, forfeited under Cromwell and now granted to the officers who petitioned. The Civil Survey for Cork City and County, apart from the barony of Muskerry, has not survived so this is a document of considerable interest.The focus of lot 566 is on another period. This is a compilation of Republican serparatist periodicals and leaflets 1922-24 bound in a single large volume.
From the Yeats family there is a trunk owned by Jack B. Yeats and held in a bank vault containing personal memorabilia of his marriage of more than 50 years including the shoes worn by Cottie to their wedding in 1894. Among the other items in the trunk was The White Jug, an oil on canvas by Jack B. Yeats of a colourful garden scene (3,000-5,000). The auction ranges far and wide, from a signed copy of Brendan Behan’s Island to the first and only edition of The Ancient and Present State of Youghal by Thomas Lord, dated 1784 to the heraldic grants to the Delaval family of Seaton Delaval, Northumberland to the Yeats family copy of Hilary Pyle’s catalogue raisonne of the Yeats oil paintings.
UPDATE: The Charles II Charter made 2,000; the first edition of Ulysses sold for 12,000; Irish Republican documents made 11,000; Toome by Seamus Heaney, limited to 15 copies, made 11,000; the Cormac McCarthy archive made just under 40,000 on the hammer; The White Jug by Yeats made 18,000 and wedding anniversary memorabilia from Jack and Cottie Yeats made 4,000.
Minutes from the trailblazing meetings of the Dublin Wide Streets Commissioners . UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 2,000 AT HAMMER
Red on Red by William Scott was the top lot at the James Adam sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on December 4. It made a hammer price of 150,000 over an estimates of 150,000-200,000. A second Scott in the sale, Still Life with Pan and Bowl, failed to find a buyer. Other top lots, with hammer prices in brackets, were: Cottages by a lake by Paul Henry (90,000); Cottages by Water by Paul Henry (70,000); Portrait of J.P. Donleavy by Robert Ballagh (30,000); Moonstruck Youth by Gerard Dillon (28,000); Lake View by Paul Henry (26,000); Horses Exercising, early morning by Basil Blackshaw (22,000); Crouching figure with bowed head by Mary Swanzy (18,500); Boats by William John Leech (18,000); Mother and child by Sir John Lavery (15,000); Clifton, Connemara by George Campbell (15,000); Drover II by Basil Blackshaw (14,000); Still Life by Patrick Swift (14,000); Coastline by Donald Teskey (10,000) and Polo Match, St Moritz by Peter Curling (8,000).
A second sale dedicated to ‘Star Wars’ collectibles runs at Sotheby’s until December 13. ‘Star Wars Online’ offers around 100 lots from the acclaimed franchise ahead of the highly-anticipated release of the final film in the sequel trilogy, ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’. As well as original posters, stickers and action figures, the auction will include many early, rare and prized collectibles associated with the film series. The 2015 Star Wars sale at Sotheby’s was a sellout.
Clive Barker – Bring me the head of Darth Vadar 1999 (£6,000-9,000)
There was a new auction record for the Siennese painter Giovanni di Paolo at Christie’s Old Masters evening sale in London on December 3. Saint Clare rescuing the shipwrecked made £5.3 million in an auction that brought in £24.2 million and attracted bidders from 22 countries across four continents.
Clementine Sinclair, head of the sale said: “The Evening sale achieved the highest ever percentage sold by lot for a London Old Masters sale at 86% and was 94% sold by value, making it one of the most successful auctions in recent years. This is a testament to the strength and depth in the market for material that is fresh and well-priced. The sale was led by the two exceptional predella panels by Giovanni di Paolo, recently restituted to the heirs of Harry Fuld, which set a new auction record for the artist and made a combined total of £8.9 million. The sale also included an important group of still lifes, with examples by Ambrosius Bosschaert, Jan Breughel the Elder, Daniel Seghers and Abraham Mignon, which was 100% sold and set a new artist record for a work by Seghers. There was cross category interest and buying, underlining the success of combining Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture.”
Giovanni di Paolo (Siena c. 1399-1482) Saint Clare rescuing the shipwrecked
A Sean Scully work from a private collection in Paris comes up at Sotheby’s Art Contemporain day sale on December 5. The pastel on paper 5.27.91 is estimated at 150,000-200,000 euro. It was previously at the Mayor Rowan Gallery in New York.
The catalogue for the James Adam evening sale of fine jewellery and watches on December 3 features 246 lots. Estimates range from 250 euro to 200,000 euro, the high estimate for a 6.74 carat rectangular cut diamond ring. A c1925 Art Deco diamond bracelet is estimated at 7,000-8,000, a diamond line bracelet by Boodles has an estimate of 4,000-5,000, a c1885 Faberge diamond and gold brooch is estimated at 3,000-4,000 and a pair of diamond ear studs is estimated at 50,000-60,000.
A DIAMOND AND CHRYSOPRASE ‘ROSE DE NOëL’ BROOCH, BY VAN CLEEF & ARPELS, CIRCA 1980. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
THIS portrait of Lady Evelyn Herbert by Sir William Orpen comes up at Sotheby’s sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist art in London on December 10. She was the only daughter of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, accompanied him to Egypt on several occasions and had the distinction of being the first woman to enter the antechamber of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in November 1922. Despite the supposed Curse of Tutankhamun, fuelled in part by her father’s tragic death in 1923 in Cairo as a result of a mosquito bite, she lived to the ripe old age of 79 and died without incident in January 1980. The portrait is estimated at £40,000-60,000.
Major evening winter sales of art take place in Dublin at Whyte’s on December 2 and James Adam on December 4. There are two works by William Scott (1913-1989) at Adams purchased from his estate and never before on the market. Still Life with Pan and Bowl is estimated at 200,000-300,000 and Red on Red has an estimate of 150,000-200,000. Dated to 1967 this latter work featured in his retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1972 and is related to the RTE abstract of the same year commissioned for RTE which sold for £187,500 at Sotheby’s in London last week. In sharp contrast to this work Cottages by a Lake by Paul Henry, one of three paintings in this auction by an artist whose work achieves stellar results, is estimated at 80,000-120,000. There is a portrait of J.P. Dunleavy painted by Robert Ballagh to mark his 60th birthday and The Irish Farm by Margaret Clarke is the original 1930 artwork for the Empire Marketing Board Free State Butter poster. There are some highly affordable artworks with low estimates of up to 600 by artists like Anita Shelbourne RHA, Imogen Stuart, Colin Middleton, Mainie Jellett, Rosamund Praeger, Ronald Ossory Dunlop and Elizabeth Rivers. If the budget stretches to 1,000 and beyond the choice widens considerable.
Whyte’s, which goes on view at the RDS today hot on the heels of the sale of the Ernie O’Malley collection last Monday, offers art by Yeats, le Brocquy, Dan O’Neill, Sir William Orpen and Paul Henry alongside international artists like Andy Warhol and a selection of 19 North American works from the collection of Anglo Irish Banks. These are from their New York office and are being sold by the special IBRC liquidator. Why Anglo in their heyday did not avail of the opportunity to hang Irish art in their New York offices is yet another Irish banking mystery. The 238 lots on offer at Whyte’s includes a joyous Bahamas canvas by Tony O’Malley titled Air, Water, Light (40,000-60,000) which was purchased from the collection of the Bank of Ireland almost a decade ago. A painting of Glencree, Co. Wicklow by Paul Henry is estimated at 60,000-80,000. Given what Whyte’s describe as an upsurge of interest in the work of Irish women artists there should be plenty of bidders for a selection of paintings by Letitia Hamilton and one by her sister Eva. A portrait of James Joyce by Louis le Brocquy is estimated at 18,000-22,000 and a 1952 work by Maurice MacGonigal depicts the artists wife and family with dog at Errisberg, Co. Mayo (20,000-30,000). Lot 46, Figures on a staircase, York St., Dublin by Patrick Hennessy was painted in 1942 when the street was the site of a terrace of grand Georgian houses that had become one of the worst tenements in Dublin. They were pulled down in the 1960’s to make way for modern social housing. In this work Hennessy documents some of the grimmest poverty to be found anywhere in the country with large families in single rooms, no sanitation and no privacy. He depicts a woman reading a newspaper on the landing with another woman looking out nervously from her doorway at a time of war. The work is estimated at 8,000-10,000.
The Anglo collection was acquired mostly through artists agents and galleries and offers a selection of mostly contemporary North American artists at price guides ranging from 500 to 2,000. Three of the works, in sets of nine, five and three respectively, are more expensively estimated. They are Glass Series 2004 by Kermit Berg (4,000-5,000); Scene Studies 2000 by Carla Arocha (3,000-5,000) and Seething City This is and We Experience by Gabart Farrar (2,000-3,000).
The Irish Farm by Margaret Clarke at James Adam (12,000-16,000). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLDAir, Water, Light Bahamas by Tony O’Malley at Whyte’s (40,000-60,000). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
