Aidan Foley will offer this Bentley at Ashford auction. UPDATE: THIS MADE 26,000 AT HAMMER
Not every kitchen clear out yields a Bentley, the bronze front doors once at Harrods and lithographs by Miro, Picasso and Dali. But Ashford Castle is not your average kitchen and all these lots will be included in Aidan Foley’s online auction of contents from the kitchens and lodge there on January 20 and 21.
The luxury hotel is carrying out a refit. Among masses of catering equipment and rare once off collectibles is a pair of plate glass doors in their bronze surround originally at Harrods. The large doors were acquired for Ashford Castle as part of a scheme that was never realised. Each one is a single plain glass panel.
The Bentley is estimated at €10,000-€20,000 and there is significant interest in it already. There is a Porsche too. A selection of around 50 lithographs by Miro, Picasso and Dali will whet the appetites of collectors. Around 700 lots will come under the hammer. The catalogue is online and the auction is on view for three days from January 17 in Cong, Co. Mayo at the Old Mill just outside the back gate of the castle.
A Miro woodcut from Ashford Castle. UPDATE: THIS MADE 220 AT HAMMER
An 1882 Patek Philippe lady’s watch UPDATE: THIS MADE 6,000 AT HAMMER
The sale on January 13 by RJ Keighery in Waterford, home of the Irish Museum of Time, will include a lifetime collection of over 300 clocks and watches Among them is a Patek Philippe lady’s watch specifically made for a client in 1882 with its original receipt (€2,000-€4,000), a Waterford c1770 longcase clock by Thomas Cahill (€2,000-€3,000), a triple fusee bracket clock (€1,000-€1,500) and longcase clocks made in Dublin, Kilkenny, Antrim, Leeds, Lewes and elsewhere.
There are wall clocks, bracket clocks, mantle clocks, Vienna clocks and even a Black Forest mid 19th century cuckoo and quail clock with its original weights (€300-€500).
The sale will feature over 80 original and once very familiar enamel signs redolent of bygone days advertising everything from Murphy’s Cork Stout and Porter to Fry’s Cocoa, Player’s Please, Will’s Woodbine and St. Bruno Flake. A vintage Thomas Edison phonograph with a cylinder is estimated at €400-€600.
An exhibition of new work by Margo Banks at the Solomon Gallery in Dublin until February 1 includes a range of mixed media studies of Irish wildlife. The artist strives to capture the freedom, autonomy and sense of otherness enjoyed by creatures of the wild like the hare, fox, deer and crow. The show features a new work in bronze as the artist revisits her sculptural practice. Her work is included in the OPW Collection, Enterprise Ireland and Cill Rialaig Arts Centre and in private collections in Ireland, the US, UK and Holland.
Louis Le Brocquy (1916-2012) – Tain Series – Metamorphosis (1969). UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,800 AT HAMMER
This lithographic brush drawing from Louis le Brocquy’s Tain Series kicks off Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall online art auction which runs until the evening of January 13. Numbered 61/70 and from a private collection it is estimated at 1,500-2,500. The catalogue for the sale is online and bidding gets underway at 6.30 pm.
Sir Max Beerbohm – Portrait of Oscar Wilde. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £22,680
The refined and engaging collection of Barry Humphries (1934-2023) – best known for his characters Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson – comes up at Christie’s in London on February 13. Driven by knowledge, passion and curiosity his collection was built over more than half a century.
Sand Dunes, Ambleteuse by the Australian painter Charles Conder leads an auction of 250 lots with estimates from £200 to £300,000 (€240 to €360,000). The best of fin-de-siecle decadent literature features a collection of Oscar Wilde related material including a presentation copy of The Importance of being Earnest. There is a selection of 19th century European and Symbolist art with work by Khnopff, Delville and von Stuck. These feature along with examples of Impressionism and modern British art, Modern Design and highlights from Dame Edna’s personal collection from costume and glasses to caricatures.
UPDATE: THE COLLECTION MADE £4.6 MILLION WITH BIDDERS FROM 41 COUNTRIES.
Charles Conder – Sand Dunes, Ambleteuse. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £239,400
Nearly 300 clocks from one collection will come under the hammer at Keighery’s auction in Waterford on January 13. This lifetime collection from a single estate (a bungalow) offers an impressive array of vintage and collectible clocks from prestigious Irish and English makers. Assembled over the decades it comprises 200 antique wall clocks, 28 longcase clocks, mantel clocks and pocket watches. The most expensively estimated is a lady’s Patek Phillippe watch in 18 carat gold specifically made for a client in 1882 with the original receipt (€2,000-€4,000). A c1770 longcase clock by Thomas Cahill, Waterford is estimated at €2,000-€3,000. Many lots have low estimates. Among them are a single fusee wall clock by Mangans of Cork (€250-€350), a Victorian paper mache clock with pendulum (€120-€180), a Dublin longcase clock in Chippendale style (€800-€1,200) and a marble clock and barometer retailed by Davis and Sons, London (€300-€500).
The sale includes more than 80 original advertising signs and the catalogue, with 470 lots in total, is online. Thomas Keighery said: “There is a great interest in this particular auction, we can see a new cohort of bidders from all across the world. We have bidders registered from the UK, France, and the USA all across Europe. We have bidders from all across Ireland and we are expecting a full house next Monday in Waterford – home of the Irish Museum of Time.”
Jeff Beck’s iconic 1954 Oxblood Gibson Les Paul guitar will lead the auction of his collection at Christie’s in London on January 22. The multi Grammy award winning artist worked with artists like Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Ronnie Wood, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Tina Turner, Mick Jagger, BB King, Nile Rodger, Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder, Imelda May and Johnny Depp. He was twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The auction comprises over 130 guitars, amps and accessories from a career that lasted almost six decades, since joining The Yardbirds in 1965 to his last tour in 2022. The Oxblood is estimated at £350,000-£500,000 (€421,380-€601,970) and estimates are from £100 (€120) up.
UPDATE: THE GUITAR SOLD FOR £1,068,500, double the high estimate and a new world record for a Gibson Les Paul.
This white marble chimney piece of inverted breakfront design features at Mullen’s classic and contemporary interiors timed online auction at Laurel Park, Bray, which runs until January 5. The estimate is €2,500-3,500. There are 653 lots on the catalogue with 208 lots of furniture and 66 lots of art. The top furniture lot is a circular Chinese rosewood inlaid table (€3,000-4,000).
Donald Teskey RHA (b.1956) – Atlantic Swell (2015). UPDATE: THIS MADE 8,000 AT HAMMER
Atlantic Swell by Donald Teskey is at €6,000-9,000 the most expensively estimated lot at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Off the Wall online auction which runs until January 13. The catalogue features work by artists including Arthur Maderson, Mark O’Neill, Damien Hirst, Graham Knuttel, Sean Scully and Mr. Brainwash. The catalogue is online and the sale will be on view in Skibbereen on January 9, 10 and 13.
O’Connell Bridge by Yeats was the most expensive Irish painting sold this year
The strength of the current market for Irish art is on plain view. Around €5 million worth of Irish art was auctioned at Adams, Whyte’s, de Veres and Morgan O’Driscoll in latter weeks.
This following some sterling results in November. The sale of the Hobart collection – most made up of Irish art – at Christie’s in November realised more than €7 million euro. O’Connell Bridge by Jack B Yeats from the collection of Pyms Gallery founders Mary and Alan Hobart sold for £882,200 (€1,055,890) to become the most expensive piece of Irish art at auction in 2024.
At Sotheby’s in London the previous week Sir William Orpen’s dazzling portrait of Mrs. Evelyn St. George sold for £720,000 (€866,230).
Horsemen by Jack B Yeats from the collection of Vincent O’Brien at Adams
There was excitement around the sale of the Jacqueline and Vincent O’Brien collection at Adams at the beginning of the month. Horse paintings by Yeats from the collection of Ireland’s greatest trainer seemed a seductive mix. Even though Adams had plenty of interest at viewings in London, Belfast and Dublin the top lots failed to sell on the night.
What happened? Had Yeats’s horse paintings put a stop to the gallop of the market for Irish art? The market held its breath, for a long moment. Until the announcement by Adams the following day that the four top paintings from the collection had been sold after the auction. They made a total of €1.3 million at hammer prices.
Horsemen and He Reads a Book each made €400,000. Two other works by Yeats, The Window with a view of the town and Willie Reilly made €250,000 and €100,000 respectively. And Orpen’s Old John’s Cottage from the O’Brien collection sold for €250,000.
Sir William Orpen – Old John’s Cottage
There is a poignant story to the latter work, painted by Orpen in 1907 in the interior of the Connemara cabin of Sean and Maire Geoghegan. The grief they felt over the departure of their granddaughter for New York is evident. This is an American wake. She would enter domestic service and never be seen again.
Paul Henry’s Killary Bay, Connemara, made €210,000 at Whyte’s this month, Old Road, Cahirciveen by Yeats made €160,000 at Morgan O’Driscoll and The Sleeping Sea by Yeats made €100,000 at de Veres.
Killary Bay, Connemara by Paul Henry
The top lot at Bonhams latest Irish sale was a South of France landscape by Mary Swanzy which made €43,520. Snow on the Hills, Rockbrook, Co. Dublin by Norah McGuinness made €20,480 and the collection of 20 lots by the artist consigned by her family was entirely sold. Letitia Marion Hamilton’s Ca d’Ora, Venice made €33,280 over a top estimate of €7,000.
These leading Irish artworks are finding buyers in a market where a lot of works by Yeats, Orpen, Lavery and Paul Henry have made recent appearances. It seems as if volume, rather than dampening demand, is stimulating it.
The market is expanding. Our economy is growing and Irish art is getting more international exposure than ever before. Collectors in England, USA, Hong Kong, China, Italy and Spain were among the bidders at Whyte’s most recent sale and there was worldwide interest in the O’Brien collection at Adams. Our art market is relatively conservative and much more immune to the speed bumps that have hit the international contemporary art market. The indicators are all facing in the right direction.
