IRISH MAHOGANY FOLD TOP CARD TABLE, C.1760. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,000 AT HAMMER
This antique Irish card table comes up as lot 331 at the second day of the James Adam annual Country House Collections sale on October 10. The estimate is €1,000-€2,000. The first day is a timed online auction while day two will be live and online from the Adams saleroom at St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin. The 757-lot auction draws together period furniture, paintings, silverware and decorative objects from some of Ireland’s finest country houses as well as from more modest collections but with the emphasis on quality and rarity. Viewing at Townley Hall near Drogheda gets underway on October 7 and the catalogue is online.
A PAIR IRISH RED WALNUT AND PARCEL GILT MIRRORS ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN BOOKER, SNR. UPDATE: THIS LOT WAS UNSOLD
Collection of 11 Midleton Very Rare Irish Whiskeys, 2014 to 2023. UPDATE: THESE MADE 8,000 AT HAMMER
Irish art and rare Irish whiskeys, wine, antiques furniture and collectibles will come under the hammer at Dolan’s timed online sale which runs until the evening of October 9. The collection of Midleton’s shown here is estimated at €8,000-€10,000. Dolans has found strong demand for such lots from around the world. The catalogue for the sale is online.
This two piece gold set commemorative Padraig Pearse medals will come under the hammer at Woodwards biannual silver and collectibles sale in Cork on October 7. The 22 carat gold medals designed by Paul Vincze were issued in 1966 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. The total weight is 189 grams.
A specimen marble table. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,750 AT HAMMER
A specimen table and a military campaign travelling bookcase are among the lots of note at Aidan Foley’s last big sale at Sixmilebridge on October 2, 3 and 4. Among 1,900 los there is art by Patrick Copperwhite, Thomas Ryan, Tom Greaney, Christy Doran, Michael Hales, John Morris, Graham Knuttel and others. There is a diamond tennis bracelet, rings and costume jewellery as well as Persian rugs, Waterford Crystal and a variety of collectibles including militaria, stamps, silver and whiskeys. The Sixmilebridge auction room has been sold to a supermarket group and the auctioneer will continue to operate from rooms at Kilcolgan, Co. Galway and Doneraile in Co. Cork and online. A final smaller sale is scheduled to take place at Sixmilebridge early in November.
A 19th century military campaign bookcase at Aidan Foley’s sale. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,200 AT HAMMER
A GEM-SET BIRD BROOCH, FRENCH, CIRCA 1950 AT ADAMS. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
The Jewellery Box, a timed online auction at James Adam in Dublin, runs until October 2 and is now on view in Dublin. It offers over 200 lots of affordable jewellery including cluster rings, pendants, bracelets, necklaces and ear studs. Meantime Matthews will hold an evening sale of jewellery, gold and silver in Kells, Co. Meath on October 3. It features over 490 lots of executor and solicitor instructions and pawnbrokers unredeemed pledges. Lot 488 is a Faberge brooch set with Russian sapphire and diamonds. Catalogues for both sales are online.
Brent Geese on the Salt Flats by Norah McGuinness. UPDATE: THIS MADE 21,000 AT HAMMER
Brent Geese on the Salt Flats by Norah McGuinness at Whyte’s evening sale of Irish and International Art in Dublin on October 2 almost certainly dates to the 1960’s. One of the founding members of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943 she was selected alongside Nano Reid to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1957. Norah McGuinness supplied illustrations to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, worked in costume and set design for the Abbey and Peacock Theatres and as a window dresser for Altman’s on 5th Avenue in New York and at Brown Thomas in Dublin. This work is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. Viewing for the sale continues all weekend and the catalogue is online.
The Blessington Commode UPDATE: THIS WAS BOUGHT PRIOR TO THE SALE BY THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IRELAND
THE Blessington Commode – created by a refugee and asylum seeker and arguably the single most important piece of mid 18th century Irish furniture at auction in decades – comes up at the annual Country House Collections sale by James Adam at Townley Hall in Co. Louth on October 9 and 10.
Attributed to John Kirkhoffer the commode has been linked directly to a signed 1732 piece dated 1732 by the same maker in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Kirkhoffers were Protestant asylum seekers who arrived in Ireland as refugees from the Rhineland Palatinate area. They were in counties Kerry and Limerick before settling in Dublin. The influx of asylum seekers then – including silversmiths, clock and furniture makers from Germany, Holland and France – gave Irish craft and skill an enormous shot in the arm. John Kirkhoffer is recorded in Dublin in the early 18th century and founded a cabinet making business that lasted into the 19th century. His father Franz Ludwig arrived in Ireland in 1709. The walnut and seaweed marquetry chest was originally made for William Stewart, 1st Earl of Blessington. He had a house at Henrietta St. in Dublin and a mansion at Blessington, Co. Wicklow which was burned down in the 1798 Rebellion. The attribution to Kirkhoffer was made by Desmond Fitzgerald, the late Knight of Glin and it is estimated at €100,000-€150,000. Earlier this year a George I secretaire by Kirkhoffer was donated by benefactor David Boles to the Irish Museum of Time in Waterford.
A mid 19th century Killarney wood davenport UPDATE: THIS MADE 13,000 AT HAMMER
Adams 757 lot auction draws together period furniture, paintings, silverware anddecorative objects from some of Ireland’s finest country houses and more modest collections with an emphasis on quality and rarity. Among the main furniture lots are a pair of c1776 elliptical side tables to a design by architect James Wyatt (€60,000-€100,000), a pair of c1785 Irish side tables with inlaid marble tops attributed to Pietro Bossi and a c 1740 Irish hall table each estimated at €50,000-€80,000. An Irish giltwood rectangular mirror is estimated at €20,000-€30,000, as is a pair of Irish red walnut and parcel gilt mirrors attributed to John Booker once at Adare Manor. They lead a large selection of elegant mirrors in the sale.
A c1740 Irish hall table. UPDATE: THIS MADE 55,000 AT HAMMER
There is a Killarney davenport (€8,000-€12,000), a George II chevron banded walnut bureau (€15,000-€20,000), a pair of Irish marble topped side tables (€15,000-€20,000), a pair of c1790 torcheres (€20,000-€30,000) and a c1770 mahogany cased barometer by John Alment, Dublin set with a hydrometer and a thermometer. Other top lots include a portrait bust of Henry Grattan by Peter Turnerelli, a set of four silver entree dishes by James le Bas, Dublin, four Irish Georgian silver candlesticks and a Cork George III coffee pot by John Nicholson c1770.The Salmon Leap at Leixlip by Thomas Roberts and Lady Nugent’s Hunter by John Ferneley snr. are each estimated at €30,000-€50,000. The first 281 lots will be sold in a timed online sale on October 9. There will be a live auction at Adam’s salerooms in Dublin on the following day. The catalogue is online and there will be viewing at Townley Hall, Drogheda on October 7, 8 and 9.
A c1770 Cork coffee pot by John Nicholson. UPDATE: THIS MADE 11,000 AT HAMMER
CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926) – Le bassin aux nymphéas CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LIMITED 2023
Le bassin aux nymphéas, one of Monet’s monumental canvases from the celebrated water lily series, will be a leading highlight at Christie’s 20th Century evening sale in New York on November 9. Modern and timeless, Le bassin aux nymphéas captures the dynamism and beauty of nature’s transience, exploring the ephemeral atmosphere, seasonal blooms, watery depths, and glimmering reflections of light of Monet’s famed lily pond in Giverny. This superb example has been held in the same family collection for over fifty years. It is estimated to realise over $65 million.
Monet’s paintings of the water lilies are now among the most highly coveted and celebrated Impressionist masterpieces of his oeuvre, with examples held in the most esteemed private and institutional collections around the world. Le bassin aux nymphéasdates from 1917-1919, an all-important period of experimentation in Monet’s practice during which he achieved a new painterly vision of the lily-pond, sparked by his desire to create mural size images of the motif rather than the smaller water landscapes he had been creating prior. These grand, monumental depictions were filled with gestural, vigorous bolts of color that coalesce to form the watery landscape, the vibrancy and gestural quality of the brushwork revealing the impressive energy that lay behind the artist’s paintings, even at this late stage of his career.
PORTRAIT OF PAUL HENRY, 1898 – SIR ROBERT PONSONBY STAPLES RBA (1853-1943) UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
The artist Paul Henry was in his early ’20’s when this portrait was painted by Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples in 1898. Signed with a monogram and titled with a shamrock it comes up as lot 14 at Whyte’s sale of Irish and International Art in Dublin on October 2 with an estimate of €5,000-€7,000. Born in 1876 the year 1898 was the year the young artist moved to Paris to study at the Academie Julien and Whistler’s Academie Carmen. The portrait is from a private collection in California. Viewing for the auction continues all weekend at Whyte’s galleries on Molesworth St. in Dublin. Among the artists featured are William Percy French, Letitia Hamilton, Rose Mary Barton, William Orpen, John Lavery, Paul Henry, William Leech, William Conor, Seán Keating, Gerard Dillon, Norah McGuinness, Patrick Collins, Louis le Brocquy, Tony O’Malley, Donald Teskey, John Shinnors, Genieve Figgis and Rowan Gillespie.
Louis Le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) – Eden (1952). UPDATE: THIS MADE 28,000 AT HAMMER
Eden is the title of the 1952 tapestry by Louis le Brocquy from the sale of Important Irish Art at James Adam in Dublin this evening (September 27). Lot 12 is estimated at €25,000-€35,000. According to the catalogue note the artist was approached by Edinburgh Tapestry Weavers in 1948. They wanted him to design a tapestry. Interested in how colour could convey emotion and the pure colour of tapestry could convey this he complied. He created his own detailed, precisely colour-coded patterns, or linear templates, a pre-Renaissance technique learned from Jean Lurçat. Le Brocquy created several series of tapestries with Edinburgh and with Aubusson in France andthe Eden series spans both studios. The woman’s heel on the upper right refers to the divine pronouncement that the serpent, blamed by her for her fall from grace, will bruise her heel – though she will crush it.
In his catalogue note Aidan Dunne states: “The dazzling, twisting form of the snake suggests that the artist takes a more uplifting view of the possibilities presented by the tree of knowledge, and the dawning of human consciousness and imagination, than religious judgement might decree.” This tapestry is from an edition of nine by Atelier Tabard Frères & Soeurs.
