Lucian Freud – Night Interior, 1968-70. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £9,586,700
Lucian Freud’s portrait of Penelope Cuthbertson leads the evening sale of Modern and Contemporary art at Sotheby’s in London on June 27. Night Interior is estimated at £8-12 million. The auction offers four pieces by three visionaries of British Art: Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Frank Dobson from a distinguished private collection. All four were created within just a few miles of one another in London. Freud’s meditative portrait will be offered alongside two remarkable paintings from Frank Auerbach’s most revered series’: Mornington Crescent and a portrait of his most famed sitter Juliet Yardley Mills, J.Y.M. Seated II. There is as well a rare to market white marble sculpture of a female form by Frank Dobson. Only ten carvings by the artist have appeared at auction in the last thirty years.
PATRICK HENNESSY (1915-1980) – Marrakesh Roses. UPDATE: THIS MADE 4,600 AT HAMMER
THIS oil on board comes up as lot 12 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current online Irish art auction which runs until June 26. The catalogue is online and the sale offers a selection of paintings, drawings, etchings, prints and sculpture. Marrakesh Roses is estimated at €2,500-3,500.
If it seems ridiculous now that the poster used in the United States to promote Michael Collins – the film directed by Neil Jordan – was deemed too militant for Ireland at least it shows that Irish politics has moved on a little. It depicts Liam Neeson playing Collins brandishing a rifle above his head while addressing a group of people. Timing is everything and this was in 1996, two years before The Good Friday agreement created the conditions for the beginning of some sort of normalisation. In Ireland a tamer image of Collins campaigning for The Treaty was used. A copy of the US cinema poster comes up today as lot 325 at Mullen’s Collector’s Cabinet auction of history, militaria and collectibles at Laurel Park in Bray on June 17. The poster is estimated at €200-€300. UPDATE: THIS MADE 200 AT HAMMER.
Original 19C Chinese Lacquered Bureau Bookcase. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,800 AT HAMMER
This 19th century lacquered bureau bookcase is among the top lots at Reillys sale of contents from Dyann House, Donadea, Co. Kildare on June 17. The house once featured on RTE’s “Ireland’s most exclusive homes”. The live online auction of 726 lots from this private residential equestrian estate which changed hands in May gets underway at 11 a.m. and there will be viewing on the premises on June 15 and 16. The bookcase is estimated at €4,000-4,500.
Paul Henry – Connemara Cottages. UPDATE: THIS MADE €120,000 AT HAMMER
Connemara Cottages is one of the works by Paul Henry at de Veres timed online sale of outstanding art and sculpture which begins to close from 6 pm on June 13. The catalogue contains gallery standard works by major artists of the 20th Century. There are three paintings by William Scott and five by Paul Henry as well as by Sean Keating, Roderic O’Conor, Mainie Jellet and contemporary works by Callum Innes, Donald Teskey, Elizabeth Magill, Mark Francis and sculpture by Rowan Gillespie and Patrick O’Reilly.
A plate from the Wedgwood Frog service. UPDATE: THIS MADE 170 AT HAMMER
Limited edition Wedgwood plates with views commissioned by Catherine the Great are among the lots at the James Adam At Home sale in Dublin on June 14. Catherine, who reigned as Empress from 1762-1796 after overthrowing her husband, greatly extended the borders of Russia and annexed Crimea (old habits die hard). She corresponded with Voltaire for 15 years and the magnificent Hermitage Museum started out as her personal collection. The Frog dinner and dessert service with 50 settings and 944 pieces was commissioned from Wedgwood and completed in 1774. Most of it is now at The Hermitage. Nine modern limited edition Frog service plates by Wedgwood with six Coalport strawberry plates and six Limoges crescent vegetable dishes form lot 433 at Adams with an estimate of €100-€200.
They are among lots of interesting pieces at timed online sales at James Adam in Dublin and Sheppards in Durrow next week. Adams will hold back to back online sales with the At Home auction starting to close from 11 am on June 14 with a smaller sale of jewellery and watches closing from 11 am on June 15. Sheppards will offer the Chinese jade and snuff bottle collection of the late Dr. Jan Mohamed of Pouldrew House, Co. Waterford on June 15 from 10 am. The extensive collection from Pouldrew House at Kilmeaden was auctioned over four days early in May.
George I burr maple desk bookcase UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
More than 500 lots will come up at the At Home sale, which offers a large selection of silver including Irish Georgian pieces and a three piece tea service by renowned London maker Paul Storr. Among a number of dinner services are fine examples of Herend porcelain and a Limoges service by Dior based on buldings designed by Palladio.A George I burr maple desk bookcase (€7,000-€10,000) is the top lot in the sale. Other prime lots of antique furniture include an overmantle mirror (€3,000-€5,000) once in the collection of designer Sybil Connolly, a Georgian revival bottle tray (€600-€800), a walnut and marquetry inlaid table (€800-€1,200) and an early Georgian sideboard (€1,000-€1,500). Art includes The Slopes of Ben Venue by Alfred de Breanski junior (1,500-€2,000) and Dublin Bay with the ship Eclipse by Joseph Sempill (€1,200-€1,600). Antique, vintage and designer jewellery and watches come to auction at Adams on the following day. Highlights include a tutti frutti design gem set and diamond bracelet (€7,000-€8,000), diamond rings, watches, Victorian and early 20th century jewellery and some novelty brooches.
Chinese green jade scholars stand. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Novelty in the form of Chinese jade can be found in abundance at Sheppards on Thursday. The late Dr. Mohamed was a distinguished collector, renowned for his passion for and knowledge about Chinese antiquities. This is a singular opportunity for collectors, connoisseurs and enthusiasts to acquire unique and exquisite pieces, a once off offering of a large collection of jade carvings, pendants, puzzle balls, amulets, necklaces, seals, plaques, masques and brush washers. Colour ranges celadon and spinach jade to white. Most of the 251 lots are estimated at between €50 and €80, with similar estimates on the snuff bottles.
Little of the fabric of Medieval Dublin remains intact today. The late 1970s saw the original Viking settlement at Wood Quay, which had been remarkably preserved in Liffey mud for almost a Millennium, being destroyed by the development of Dublin Corporation’s offices. Protests against the destruction of Wood Quay received huge public support and it was the cause celebre of the time. A small collection of posters and leaflets produced by the protest movement are offered in three lots at Mullen’s Collector’s Cabinet sale of history, militaria and collectibles auction on June 17. Estimates range from €150-€200. UPDATE: THIS MADE 320 AT HAMMER
Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A. (1775-1851) – Sunrise over the Sea, perhaps at Margate courtesy CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2023. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £1,032,200.
Capturing the enigmatic fleeting beauty of changing sunlight celebrated across cultures and across time, Sunrise over the Sea, perhaps at Margateby J M W Turner is a highlight at Christie’s Old Master and British Drawings and Watercolours sale on July 4 during Classic Week in London. Harriet Drummond, International Head of British Drawings and Watercolours, commented: “This remarkably well-preserved and ravishingly beautiful drawing is an exceptional example of the boldly expressive watercolours Turner made in his final years. Previously dated to the later 1820s, it is has now been associated by Ian Warrell for the first time with sheets of one of the ‘roll’ sketchbooks that were broken up and dispersed after Turner’s death. Turner deployed these light-weight books on many of his later travels in the early 1840s, notably in Germany, Venice and the celebrated final tours of Switzerland. In this instance, the dismantled book can be placed in the sequence of sketchbooks used during the summer of 1845 overlapping in its focus on cloudy skies over the sea with the contents of the ‘Channel’ sketchbook at the Yale Center for British Art, and several of those in the Turner Bequest at Tate Britain.”
The watercolour is estimated at £600,000-800,000.
Turner has posthumously often been celebrated for his depictions of sunset light, but in recent years many of the works John Ruskin and others had identified as that time of day have been retitled as sunrises. Turner confessed to a young admirer at the time: ‘when you are all fast asleep, I am watching effects of sunrise far more beautiful [than the sunsets people associated with him]; and then, you see, the light does not fail, and you can paint them’ (M. Lloyd, ‘A Memoir of J.M.W. Turner, R.A.’, (1880), Turner Studies, summer 1984, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 22). It was this kind of dedicated approach to the observation of changing light that anticipates Claude Monet’s method of painting successive canvases, working on each within a limited time frame during the course of a day; both Turner and Monet were especially drawn to the special character of dawn and twilight.
A pair of oval Irish 19th century mirrors made a hammer price of €11,200 at Sean Eacrett’s sale of contents from Rocklow House, Fethard, Co. Tipperary today. They had been estimated at €2,000-€4,000. The mirrors, probably Waterford, have repeating blue and white decoration, one with four gold fillets and the other with three gold fillets. A 19th century dining table on substantial turned and reeded supports with four extra leaves made €4,600 and a set of 19th century dining chairs made €1,600.
A landmark rediscovery of the last known pair of portraits by Rembrandt to remain in private hands will highlight Christie’s Old Masters sale in London on July 6. The subjects are relatives of Rembrandt, wealthy Leiden plumber Jan Willemsz van der Pluym (c1565-1644) and his wife Jaapgen Carels (1565-1640). Signed and dated 1635 they were acquired at Christie’s by an ancestor of the present owners almost two centuries ago and have remained completely unknown to scholars ever since. They return to auction after an extensive investigation and scientific analysis at the Rijksmuseum. The portraits remained in the family of the sitters until 1760, when they were sold at auction in Amsterdam. They passed to the collection of Count Vincent Potocki (c.1740-1825) in Warsaw, before briefly entering the collection of Baron d’Ivry in Paris in 1820 and then James Murray, 1st Baron Glenlyon (1782-1837), who put them up for sale at Christie’s in June of 1824. The estimate is £5 million – £8 million (€5.75 million – €9.2 million). UPDATE: THESE SOLD FOR FOR £11,235,000
