These bespoke stage jackets designed by L’Wren Scott for her partner Mick Jagger will highlight an online sale at Christie’s from June 9-July 1. The L’Wren Scott Collection sale comprises 55 curated lots designed between 2006 and 2014. The ‘glamouflage’ jacket on the left was worn by Mick Jagger during the Rolling Stones’ headline performance at Glastonbury in 2013. The Butterfly jacket on the right was worn during the celebrated Hyde Park concert, part of the Rolling Stones’ ‘50 & Counting’ live tour in 2013. Jagger wore it while performing ‘Miss You’, when large screens surrounding the Hyde Park stage showed blue butterflies, identical to those on his jacket, fluttering skywards as a tribute to the late Brian Jones, reminiscent of their 1969 Hyde Park concert when white butterflies were released into the sky in his honour. The jackets are estimated at £20,000-£30,000 each.
The most important Brontë material to come to light in a generation and two of the greatest Scottish manuscripts in private hands are to come under the hammer at Sotheby’s. Thought lost for almost a century the Honresfield Library was assembled with passion by self-made Victorian industrialists Alfred and William Law at the turn of the 20th century and has since been maintained with care by generations of the Law family. A unique treasury replete with cornerstones of British culture, its re-emergence after almost 100 years in obscurity marks a defining moment for bibliophiles in what is set to be the one of the great library sales of recent years.
Emily and Anne Brontë autograph manuscripts
Among the library’s holdings is the most important material by the Brontë sisters to come to light in a generation – unrivalled in importance by any other private collection. The rare pieces open a window onto the short but amazing lives of Charlotte, Emily, Anne and even Branwell Brontë.
Treasures include an extremely rare handwritten copy of Emily’s poems, with revisions from Charlotte (£800,000-1,200,000) and the well-loved Brontë family copy of Bewick’s History of British Birds, the book made famous in the opening pages of Jane Eyre (£30,000-50,000), brimming with entertaining annotations from their father Patrick. Little-seen letters to and from fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, Hartley Coleridge (son of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge), George Smith, publisher and vital champion of ‘The Bells’ (The Brontës’ secretive pseudonym), and many more, abound.
Sir Walter Scott autograph manuscript
Scottish literature is also at the heart of the collection, which includes the most important manuscript by Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, in private hands. A compendium of poems, notes and ideas put together by Burns as an unknown twenty-four year old, First Commonplace Book offers a unique insight into the bard’s mind. It was last sold at Sotheby’s in 1879, for £10. The collection includes individual handwritten manuscripts of Burns’s poems and original letters to friends, family, patrons and lovers which build a picture of his colourful life.
Robert Burns First Commonplace Book
Romantic writer Sir Walter Scott – the second-most quoted writer in the Oxford English Dictionary after Shakespeare – is also represented, most notably by the complete manuscript for Rob Roy, one of the last remaining manuscripts of a great 19th century novel that is not now in an institution. There are Jane Austen first editions, including Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, a copy of Don Quixote printed in 1620 for Edward Blounte, the publisher for the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, and an annotated copy of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poems with pages showing author’s changes from proof printing in his hand. Homer, Ovid, the Grimm Brothers, Montaigne, Ann Radcliffe, Horace Walpole, Charles Dickens and Mary Wollstonecraft are among those making an appearance.More than 500 historic manuscripts, exceptional first editions, intimate letters and beautiful bindings will be offered across three auctions at Sotheby’s. The first auctions open for bidding from July 2-13 next. Exhibitions of highlights are to take place in London, Edinburgh and New York.
UPDATE: Sotheby’s has postponed this auction to allow for negotiations for the entirety of the library to be acquired by a consortium of institutions for the nation.
THIS c1960 gem set and diamond bracelet by Boucheron comes up as Lot 58 at the timed online Fine Jewellery and Watches sale at James Adam in Dublin. The auction will begin to close at 5 pm on Tuesday May 25. The bracelet illustrated here is composed of fluted foliate links, highlighted with circular cabochon sapphires, emeralds and rubies, each accented by a trio of brilliant-cut diamonds, with rope twist detailing and mounted in 18 carat gold. It is estimated at 5,000-6,000. UPDATE: THIS MADE 6,000 AT HAMMER
Something about house contents auctions brings on the urge to rummage. Drawn from no less than four house clearances the catalogue for Matthews auctions in Kells, Co. Meath on May 22 and 23 offers plenty of scope for rummaging among everything from an antique dinner gong to gilded mirrors, garden fountains, silver mounted mirrors and brushes, an Edwardian cake stand, boxes of books, porcelain and antique furniture. The past year has demonstrated that much of what we do in real time can be done virtually and an online rummage through a catalogue with 1,000 lots might prove fruitful. Matthews will follow this sale with an auction of gold, silver, jewellery and collectibles on the evening of May 25.
A rare Irish £100 note from 1928 comes up at Dix Noonan Webb in London on May 27. Among a strong selection of Irish notes in the auction of British, Irish and World banknotes is this £100 note from the Irish Free State, dated 10 September 1928 and estimated at £12,000-16,000. A £50 note from the same date carries an estimate of £8,000-10,000. (Update – the £100 note sold for £14,880, the £50 note went for £9,920).
Andrew Pattison, Head of Department at Dix Noonan Webb, said: “These two notes are some of the first issued by the independent Ireland in 1928, and are also the first to feature the iconic image of Lady Lavery leaning on harp. There are now thought to be less than ten of each of these denominations still in existence from this early date.”
UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £14,880 TO A COLLECTOR IN IRELAND
A White Star Line illustrated promotional booklet from 1911 showing Olympic and Titanic was the sleeper lot at Whyte’s Eclectic Collector sale in Dublin. The 72 page booklet made €5,800 over a top estimate of €300. The auction grossed €600,000 with over 90% of lots sold. More than 1,000 bidders registered online.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 8, 2021)
This 18th century engraved Irish Map containing Plans of Drogheda, Derry, Kinsale Harbour, Charlemont Fort, City of Dublin, Coleraine, The Harbour of Cork, Galway, The City of Kilkenny, Carrickfergus, The City of Cork, Athlone, Waterford, Belfast, The Royal Fort of Duncannon and Limerick comes up as Lot 321 at Fonsie Mealy’s sale of contents from Killoughter House, Ashford, Co. Wicklow online on May 18. It is estimated at €200-€300. UPDATE: THIS MADE 360 AT HAMMER
From Italian and Danish furniture in the 1950’s, ’60’s and ’70’s at de Veres to a crocquet set and an 18th century engraved Irish map with plans of Drogheda, Derry, Kinsale Harbour, Cork Harbour, Kilkenny, Cork, Waterford and Limerick at Fonsie Mealy’s there is plenty to choose from at online sales next week. The Design of our Times timed online sale at de Veres until May 18 offers classic 20th century design, period Irish Georgian and Victorian furniture and contemporary and traditional art. Among the artists featured are Donald Teskey, Bridget Riley, Mark Francis, Kenneth Webb, Erskine Nichol and Edwin Hayes. Renowned designers from Eileen Gray, le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe to Arne Jacobsen, Finn Juhl, Eero Saarinen, Ron Arad and Verner Panton all feature in a sale of nearly 400 lots.
The Egg chair designed by Arne Jacobsen for Fritz Hansen at de Veres. UPDATE: THIS MADE 8,000 AT HAMMER
Fine furniture, antiques, ceramics, paintings, outdoor and garden effects and wines will feature at Fonsie Mealy’s online sale of contents from Killoughter House, Ashford, Co. Wicklow on May 18. Among more than 600 lots are a pair of miniature pencil portraits of Philip Somerville of The Prairie, Schull, Co. Cork and his wife Henrietta Townsend, an 18th century engraved Irish map, a pair of minature portraits of Brisbane Warren of Union Hall and his wife Mary, daughter of Philip Somerville. Furniture includes a large 19th century French gilt console table once in the collection of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty.
A rare and original Advertising Mirror, “The Shamrock Whiskey” by Kirker, Greer & Co. Ltd., Belfast,” c. 1910 at Fonsie Mealy. UPDATE: THIS MADE 4,000 AT HAMMER
An original 1802 drawing of the Irish playwright and satirist Richard Brinsley Sheridan comes up at Whyte’s Eclectic Collector sale online on May 15 and 16. It is among the historical artefacts, manuscripts, books, maps, militaria, coins, banknotes, sporting and entertainment memorabilia, curios, tribal objects and rare whiskies on offer. Lot 35 is a theatrical candidate cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) with an original drawing featuring Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The long term owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane he is known for plays like School for Scandal, The Rival, the Duenna and A Trip to Scarborough. The cartoon is estimated at €800-€1,200.
Original ink and water colour drawing with the playwright seated at the desk. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR €750
A rare copper token – an unofficial Irish farthing – engraved James Mabbs, Albion Bakery, 27 Patrick Street, Cork sold to an Irish collector for a world record price of £2,976 at Dix Noonan Webb in London this month. Lot 835 in the sale of Coins, Tokens and Historical Medals had been estimated at £300-400. The copper token dates to 1840-1870. It was from the Irish token collection of the late Barry Woodside, who was born in Belfast. His collection, which comprised 40 lots, sold for a total of £20,795. It included three tokens from Belfast which made £4,464.
Also in the sale was the the second part of the collection of 17th century tokens formed by the late Robert Thompson. This saw the highest price paid for a lot comprising two civic tokens from Limerick including a very fine example of a City Farthing dating from 1658 . It went to a US buyer for £1,612 against an estimate of £90-120.
