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    FREUD NUDE MAKES £22.5 MILLION, A RECORD FOR THE ARTIST IN LONDON

    Tuesday, June 26th, 2018

    Lucian Freud – Portrait on a White Cover

    One of Lucian Freud’s last great nudes, Portrait on a White Cover sold  for £22.5 million at Sotheby’s in London tonight.  It was the most valuable painting by the artist ever sold in London. The previous highest price for a London auction of the artist’s work was £16.1 million set by Pregnant Girl at Sotheby’s in February 2016.  Painted when the artist was 80 years old it represents the culmination of Freud’s lifelong engagement with the reclining nude. Alongside the self-portrait, the reclining nude was the defining leitmotif of Freud’s career. Across sixty years of painting, innumerable mutations of painterly style, and a multitude of sitters, he returned to this challenging subject time and again.

    Portrait on a White Cover depicts Sophie Lawrence, who worked for Tate publishing and was spotted by Freud whilst preparing for his Tate retrospective in 2002. This is her only known portrait and there is little written about her in the literature surrounding the artist’s work. Ahead of this sale, she shared her story of sitting for the artist: “I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else, but he is one of the best artists who has ever lived. It was incredibly intimidating, but he made me feel at ease. He was very good at building a rapport with people. I was very fond of him.”

    The artist painted only three further reclining nudes before his death in 2011. The painting which immediately preceded Portrait on a White Cover, Naked Portrait 2002 – depicting Kate Moss pregnant – set a new auction record for the artist at £7.3 million when it appeared at auction in 2005. Four of the top five prices for the artist at auction are for reclining nudes.

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    NELSON’S TRAFALGAR WATCH AT SOTHEBY’S TREASURES SALE

    Tuesday, June 26th, 2018

    Nelson’s pocket watch.  UPDATE: THIS MADE £322,000

    A watch that belonged to Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson and is thought to have been carried during the Battle of Trafalgar will be one of the highlights of Sotheby’s Treasures sale on 4 July. It is estimated at £250,000 – 450,000.  On the morning of the Battle of Trafalgar, William Beatty – the Irish surgeon aboard Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, observed how before the battle commenced, the Admiral called upon his lieutenants to synchronise their watches to the time on his own watch. It is therefore quite possible that the tumultuous events of that historic day unfolded to the time kept by this very watch.

    Fought on October21,  1805 off the southern coast of Spain, the Battle of Trafalgar was a decisive moment in the Napoleonic Wars (1796 – 1815). Commanded by Admiral Nelson the British fleet defeated the combined fleets of the Spanish and French navies, fighting off Napoleon Bonaparte’s advancements to invade Britain. In the midst of battle, Nelson was shot in the left shoulder, a shot that would prove fatal.

    The Chairman of Sotheby’s International Watch Division, Daryn Schnipper said: ‘The perfect timing of the British assault at the Battle of Trafalgar was key in the historic victory of the Royal Navy so to be able to offer for sale the watch that Nelson probably used to establish the timing for this decisive battle, is a real privilege.”

    One of the nineteen relics returned to Nelson’s mistress, Emma, Lady Hamilton, following his death, the watch was inherited by the Admiral’s brother, Willliam, 1st Earl Nelson and subsequently passed to his sole surviving child, Charlotte. Charlotte arranged for the watch to be mounted in its current form as a carriage clock, presumably so it could be better admired and treasured as her illustrious uncle’s most precious possession. It was excluded from the group of precious relics, including the Admiral’s orders and decorations offered for sale in 1895 and subsequently acquired by the British government.

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    SUCCESSFUL ONLINE ART SALE BY MORGAN O’DRISCOLL

    Tuesday, June 26th, 2018

    There were 230 lots at the successful Morgan O’Driscoll online sale of Irish art on June 25.  Here are some results:

    CIARAN CLEAR (1920-2000) Moonlight Connemara Coast made 5,400 at hammer.

    JOHN SHINNORS (B.1950) Field Forms, Shooting Star made 6,600 at hammer.

    SEAN O’SULLIVAN (1906-1964)The Weaver (1952) made 1,900 at hammer.

    JOHN KELLY RHA (1932-2006) – Harbour, Castletownsend West Cork (2014) made 640 at hammer.

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    A PORTRAIT OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE AT BONHAMS

    Monday, June 25th, 2018

    This rare portrait of Sir Francis Drake (c1540-1596)  by an unknown artist from the Anglo Dutch School was authenticated by the wart on his nose.  Experts say that genuine portraits include the wart, others do not.  The sea captain, slave trader, naval officer and explorer of the Elizabethan era is shown in expensive half armour as a man of grandeur and social standing.

    It is believed the work dates to the mid 1570’s before his famous triumph as caption and second in command of the British naval defence against the Spanish Armada in 1588.  Regarded as a hero by the English and a pirate by the Spanish he carried out the second circumnavigation of the world. Various locations globally are named after him, including Drake’s Pool in Crosshaven where he is said to have hidden from the pursuing Spanish.  The portrait comes up at Bonhams Old Masters sale in London on July 4 estimated at £300,000-500,000.   UPDATE: THIS MADE £356,750

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    GEORGE III DINING TABLE AT SHEPPARDS

    Saturday, June 23rd, 2018
    A George III dining table at Sheppards sale in Co. Wicklow on June 26, 27 and 28 is of particular interest because of recent events Stateside.  The 20 foot long table is estimated at 30,000-50,000.  The estimate on a similar table at a sale in New York last month was the same.  But the Regency four pedestal dining table from the Rockefeller Collection was knocked down for $468,500 dollars in a global sale where many lots exceeded all expectations. The $832 million realised from that auction was the highest total ever for a single collection and the most significant charitable auction in history.
    Sheppards sale at Coolattin House, Shillelagh, Co. Wicklow is now on view.  It is composed of lots from the collection of the late Kanturk based solicitor Gerard O’Keeffe and other clients. The sale will be held over six sessions next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 10.30 am and 2 pm on each day.
    There is a series of 18th century Irish furniture pieces including two side tables with scallop carved aprons.   Among the works of art is a Portrait of lady in a red silk gown by John Michael Wright.  It is from Cloghan Castle, Co. Offaly and was purchased at a Sotheby’s sale of Old Master paintings in 1968.  There is an Irish landscape by William Ashford and work by Hugh Douglas Hamilton.

    The collection of Gerard O’Keeffe forms a major part of the sale and it includes a collection of ivory and a series of watches including a Piaget.  There is a selection of contemporary Irish art and sculpture, Irish and international literature, bookcases and garden lots in a wide ranging auction of nearly 2,000 lots.

    A George III four pillar dining table

    A George III Chippendale bookcase

    A portrait of a lady in a red silk

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    IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN ART MAKES £128 MILLION AT CHRISTIE’S

    Thursday, June 21st, 2018

    Pablo Picasso, Femme dans un fauteuil (Dora Maar)

    The Impressionist and Modern sale at Christie’s in London last night made £128,081,750.  The top lot was Claude Monet’s exterior view of the Gare St. Lazare which made £24.9 million.

    Picasso’s Femme dans un fauteuil (Dora Maar) made £19.3 million.  Franz Marc’s Drei Pferde sold for £15.4 million, six times the estimate of £2.5 million and Auguste Rodin’s Baiser, moyen modele made £12.6 million.

    A landscape by Kazimir Malevich made £7.8 million and L’Estaque by Georges Braque sold for £5.2 million.  Strong results were also achieved by German and Austrian artists.

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    PICASSO, GIACOMETTI THE STARS OF SOTHEBY’S SALE

    Wednesday, June 20th, 2018

    Fresh to market works by Picasso, Giacometti, Monet, Kandinsky and Matisse brought a total of  £87.5 million  at Sothebys sale of Impressionist and Modern art in London last night.   The auction was led by Buste de femme de profil (Femme écrivant) from Picasso’s ‘year of wonders’, 1932, which sold for over ten times the £2.4 million it achieved when last at auction in 1997. At £27.3 million it brought the total for four works by Picasso in the sale to £40 million.

    Giacometti’s elegant Le Chat sold for £12.6 million. Subsequent to this rendition of a cat, a dog and two horses in 1951, Giacometti never turned his hand to sculpting animals again. Monet’s dazzling La Méditerranée par vent de mistral  made £7.2 million and Camille Pissarro’s Le boulevard Montmartre, brume du matin, from the artist’s most celebrated series of urban views, was acquired by an Asian private collector for £3.5 million.

    Pablo Picasso – Buste de femme de profil

    Alberto Giacometti – Le Chat

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    QUENTIN BLAKE ILLUSTRATIONS AT CHRISTIE’S

    Tuesday, June 19th, 2018

    Quentin Blake, Charlie, Willie Wonka and Grandpa
    Joe (£10,000-15,000)

    A series of illustrations from the  collection of Quentin Blake, one of Britain’s best-loved illustrators, come up at Christie’s in London on July 11. A selection of 30 illustrations feature in the Valuable Books and Manuscripts auction alongside a dedicated online sale of 148 illustrations from July 3 to 12.

    The collection comprises works from the past 40 years of Quentin Blake’s career, showcasing some of the most celebrated literary characters of today, which have captured the imagination of generations of children including Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, and James and the Giant Peach to David Walliams’s Mr Stink. Alongside these cherished children’s stories, the sale presents collectors the opportunity to acquire works from various other projects that Blake has worked on including editions illustrated for The Folio Society and artwork for J Sheekey Restaurant, along with illustrations for various public spaces, such as St George’s Hospital, Tooting and the Maternity Unit at Angers University Hospital in France.

    They are being sold to benefit House of Illustration, Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity and Survival International. Estimates range from £200 to £10,000.

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    PAINTING OF 1ST DUKE OF LEINSTER AND WIFE EMILY AT CARTON

    Sunday, June 17th, 2018

    Arthur Devis (1712-1787) – James, Ist Duke of Leinster and his wife Emily  UPDATE: THIS MADE £262,000

    This 1753 painting by Arthur Devis (1712-1787) shows James, Ist Duke of Leinster and his wife Emily seated in the grounds of Carton – a garden said to have become the model on which all later gardens in Ireland were styled.  Emily, who played an important role in the development of the house and estate, holds designs for a new bridge.  She created the Chinese Room and the shell cottage on the estate,  The grounds were re-designed in the naturalistic style of Capability Brown, incorporating an informal park, artificial lake and island, a kitchen garden and hothouses.

    Emily Lennox married James FitzGerald, 20th Earl of Kildare  and the future 1st Duke of Leinster at Richmond House, the London residence of her parents.  Those parents, the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, opposed the match at first, preferring an English man.  The wedding was magnificent but it was rumoured, incorrectly, that her parents had not given her a shilling. In fact she got £10,000, the same as her two younger sisters.  The marriage was a happy one and they had 19 children.  The work, from the collection of the current Duke of Leinster, comes up at Bonhams Old Master Paintings sale in London on July 4 estimated at £80,000-120,000.

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    THE BEGINNING OF IMPRESSIONISM AT SOTHEBY’S

    Friday, June 15th, 2018

    Four paintings created by three of the key players in the development of Impressionist art come up at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern sale in London on June 19.  Each one embodies a different aspect of the movement, together providing an engaging insight into one of the most important periods of art history. The journey opens with Boudin’s Crinolines sur la plage (1866) and Monet’s Le Port de Zaandam (1871), marking the beginnings of Impressionist painting, with both artists painting en plein air to capture fleeting ‘impressions’ of time and place. In a rare still-life painted the following decade, Monet adapts the pioneering techniques of this ‘new’ art to a traditional subject, and the story ends with Pissarro’s majestic urban view of fin-de-siècle Paris.

    Commenting on this group, Philip Hook, Senior Specialist, Sotheby’s Board Director and author of Rogues’ Gallery: A History of Art and its Dealers, said: ‘Three of the works also share a connection with one of the most remarkable men in the history of the Impressionist movement – Paul Durand-Ruel. Durand-Ruel was drawn to contemporary art and to the process of painters painting pictures, and dedicated his life to developing a wider appreciation for such works, creating the modern art market in the process. No dealer was closer to an artistic movement than Durand-Ruel was to Impressionism – he was its promoter and its champion, its defender and its bankroller. Without him, and these revolutionary artists, art history might have looked very different.’

    Claude Monet, Le Port de Zaandam (£3.5-5 million)  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    Eugène Boudin, Crinolines sur la plage (£600,000-900,000)  UPDATE: THIS MADE £850,000

    Claude Monet, Citrons sur une branche (£2.5-3.5 million)  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    Camille Pissarro, Le Boulevard Montmartre, brume du matin (£3-5 million)  UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £3.4 MILLION

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