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    JAPANESE BOWLS WITH ROYAL CONNECTIONS

    Saturday, February 27th, 2021

    A cased pair of Japanese porcelain tea bowls decorated with foliage and the gilt mythological bird known as Fenghuang presented to Princess Michiko at a tennis tournament come up at Hegarty’s online only auction of antique furniture, art, jewellery and collectibles in Bandon on February 28. The lot includes a black and white photograph of the princess inscribed with the year 1961.  Four years earlier Michiko Shoda played a game of mixed doubles against then Crown Prince Akihito. It was and it wasn’t a love match.  The Crown Prince lost the match and his heart. Michiko won the prince and the game. Their wedding marked the first time in the 2,600+ years of the Yamato dynasty that someone born neither a princess nor an aristocrat married into the Imperial household.  The bowls are estimated at €400-€600. If that story has struck some sort of romantic chord then how about a vintage square cut yellow sapphire and diamond ring. Hegarty’s has just the one, estimated at €5,000-€7,000.  Among other lots of note is a pair of matching 19th century inlaid cutlery urns (€8,000-€10,000) and a watercolour by Douglas Alexander titled Among the Crohyboyle Mountains (€2,000-€4,000). There is an Art Deco peridot and diamond ring (€5,000-€9,000), an Italian Art Deco silver ice bucket (€3,500-€7,000) and an Edwardian Sheraton Revival sideboard (€1,000-€2,000). The sale offers one of the first three printings of the trade editions of The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (€800-€1,500).  The March 1903 version includes all 30 illustrations, mostly by Quentin Blake, reduced to 27 thereafter. 

    Cased pair of Japanese bowls. UPDATE: THESE MADE 420 AT HAMMER

    POSTER FOR TRUE GRIT, JOHN WAYNE’S OSCAR MOVIE

    Thursday, February 25th, 2021

    A poster for True Grit, the film for which John Wayne won an Oscar, comes up at Fonsie Mealy’s Collectors’ Sale online from Castlecomer on March 3. Directed by Henry Hathaway the film starred John Wayne, Glen Campbell and Kim Darby. The poster is estimated at 120-180 in a sale of collectibles including literature, local and national history, sport and cinema.

    UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 210

    METEORITES HOLD UNIVERSAL APPEAL AT CHRISTIE’S

    Wednesday, February 24th, 2021

    All lots sold and 72 of the 75 on offer made more than their top estimates at Christie’s Deep Impact: Martian Lunar and Other Rare Meteorites online only sale from New York. It brought in $4,351,750 and attracted bidders from 23 countries across five continents. A slice of the moon, the fourth largest in this world, made $525,000 over a top estimate of $350,000 and a sphere fashioned from a lunar meteorite made $500,000 over a top estimate of $25,000. A 1.7 gram sample of the planet Mars sold for $13,750, worth more than 100 times its weight in gold.

    This stone meteorite made $175,000

    A SALE FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN RESTORATION

    Sunday, February 21st, 2021

    Restoration specialists will find much to occupy themselves with at a two day  online auction by Doneraile based Aidan Foley next weekend.  A large selection of antique and reproduction furniture, paintings, porcelain and collectibles from Springmount House in Sunday’s Well, Cork will be on offer on February 27.  Some furniture like a Victorian side or hall table, is simply too large for most modern homes.   Most of it is in need of some tender loving care.  A bit of elbow grease will be enough to revive a selection of occasional tables, side tables, a dining table, a set of eight dining chairs, gilt framed overmantle mirrors and various  bureaux.  Other works, such as a fine antique red lacquered boulle bureau plat, an old drum table, a Georgian bureau with astragal glazed doors (one broken pane), an early Victorian card table and a library table will need more specialist intervention.  There is a decidedly continental feel to some of the furniture, like some gilt framed drawing room chairs which were almost certainly imported into this country from mainland Europe several decades ago. A selection of Victorian style gilt framed landscapes, seascapes and townscapes in gilt frames include two smaller townscapes. attributed to Fr. Prout, humorist, literary journalist and author of The Bells of Shandon. A large dark shipboard scene is signed Marstrand, possibly the Danish artist Wilhelm Marstrand (1810-1873).  And there is a print of John Butts View of Cork from Audley Place, painted around 1750. Another lot to attract a different sort of specialist interest is an 07 registration Mercedes 500 SEL with leather interior and 5.5 V8 petrol engine.  According to Mr. Foley it originally cost €180,000. This time round it is estimated at €12,000-€16,000 as lot number 2.   The sales will be live on easyliveauction.com from 11 am on February 27 and 28.

    Gilt overmantle mirror. UPDATE: THIS MADE 700 AT HAMMER

    RARE PLOUGHMAN’S NOTE AT DIX NOONAN WEBB

    Saturday, February 20th, 2021

    A particularly rare Irish £10 Ploughman’s note is estimated at £22,000-£26,000 at Dix Noonan Webb’s live and online auction in London on February 24. The Northern Bank note dated May 6, 1929 is being offered by a private collector at a sale of British, Irish and World Banknotes which features the only known example of a £50 note from the Belfast Banking Company Ltd. This note, dated December 7, 1917, is estimated at £8,000-£10,000.

     Founded in 1783 the Bank of Ireland was the first national bank in this country and a £1 note from its Westport branch dating from 1838 is estimated at £9,000-£11,000. Surviving pre-1850 notes are very rare. 

    UPDATE: The Northern Bank Ploughman’s Note sold for £18,000, the Belfast Banking Co. £50 note sold for £10,000 and the Westport note sold for £9,500.

    Rare Ploughman’s Note from the Northern Bank. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £18,000

    ANYONE FOR A PIECE OF THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY?

    Friday, February 19th, 2021

    A little bit of Ireland in the form of a stone from the Giant’s Causeway comes up at Victor Mee’s online Decorative Interiors sale on March 3 and 4. Stones from the Giant’s Causeway were used for hundreds of years for housebuilding around the north west coast. They can been seen in old stone walls and are regularly found when ancient houses fall down. The three stones coming up as lots 436-438 in this sale were once part of a structure located near the causeway. Each one is estimated at 200-400.

    The Giants Causeway was a commercial quarry from the 1940’s until the 1960’s. A quarry a short distance away with the same stones from the same lava flow was called Craignahulliar. It was worked by Portrush Columnar Basalt Company Ltd until the 1980’s. The basalt columns formed from the same lava flows 60 million years ago, which cooled slowly forming the unusual shapes.

    UPDATE: The three stones sold for 140, 180 and 280 respectively

    MEDAL AWARDED TO BRITISH SOLDIER AT EASTER RISING SELLS IN LONDON

    Wednesday, February 17th, 2021

    A medal awarded to Lieutenant Basil Worswick, killed on April 29, 1916 at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin during the height of the Easter Rising sold for £1,300 at Dix Noonan Webb  in London today. He was shot by a guard, who thought he was a Sinn Fein spy.   The 1914-15 Star plus was expected to fetch £400-500. Worswick went with the 2nd Battalion to Ireland to help quell the disturbance in the Dublin. On the night of April 28/29 a detachment of the Dublin Fusiliers was stationed at the malt house. When the night clerk of the brewery, accompanied by Lieutenant Lucas of the King Edward’s Horse, was making his nightly round he was challenged by the very nervous guard of Royal Dubliners. Mistaken for Sinn Feiners trying to infiltrate the brewery premises, the guard shot both the night clerk and Lucas dead. Worswick heard the commotion. He arrived at the malt house to find that his fellow officer had been killed. Challenged and searched by a sergeant of the Dublin Fusiliers he rushed at him. Seeing this the guard believing Worswick to be a Sinn Fein spy, killed him instantly.

    The Company Quartermaster Sergeant in charge of the party of Dublin Fusiliers, Robert Flood, was court-martialled and acquitted for the deaths of Lieutenants Lucas and Worswick. His actions were attributed to the confusion and panic of the Easter Rising. He died in action in Macedonia the following year.

    CHINESE CHIPPENDALE DISPLAY CABINET ANYONE?

    Tuesday, February 16th, 2021

    This Chinese Chippendale display cabinet, possibly by Hicks of Dublin, dates to c1890-1910. The piece is unsigned, but that is not unusual with furniture made by Hicks during this period. It comes up at Sean Eacrett’s auction of 856 lots online on February 27 as lot 634 with an estimate of 3,000-5,000. The catalogue is online at easyliveauction.com. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    QUEEN VICTORIA MOURNING JEWELLERY AT SOTHEBY’S

    Monday, February 15th, 2021

    Mourning jewellery belonging to Queen Victoria will come up at Sotheby’s in London on March 24 as part of the family collection of Patricia Mountbatten, Victoria’s great, great grand daughter. Over the course of her long reign Queen Victoria suffered many losses spending decades mourning not only her husband Albert, but also her mother and three of her children. During this time, she adorned herself in black crepe and wearable mementos of her loved ones.

    On December 14, 1878, the anniversary of Prince Albert’s death, Victoria’s third child Alice died of diphtheria at the age of 35. Princess Alice’s youngest daughter, Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, had also died of the same disease at the age of four. Three of the brooches mark Alice’s tragic passing including: an onyx and seed pearl button commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1879 with a portrait miniature of Princess Alice (£1,000-1,500), an agate and pearl pendant with a lock of hair inscribed ‘from Grandmama VR’ as gift from the Queen to Alice’s daughter, Princess Victoria (£1,000-1,500) and a hardstone, enamel and diamond cross centring on an onyx heart with Alice beneath a coronet (£2,000-3,000).

    The fourth was commissioned by Prince Albert circa 1861 for Queen Victoria to mark the death of her mother. An agate and diamond pendant, it opens to reveal a miniature photograph of the Queen’s mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, later Duchess of Kent, with an inscription by the Prince Consort (£1,000-1,500).

    The Queen’s own mourning jewellery. UPDATE: THESE DOUBLED THEIR ESTIMATES AND BROUGHT IN A COMBINED TOTAL OF £100,800

    PROVINCIAL SILVER AT HOME AT JAMES ADAM

    Sunday, February 14th, 2021

    Joseph Gibson, John Williams, James Warner, William Reynolds, Carden Terry Jane Williams, John Nicholson, Joseph Johns, William Ward and William Egan are names laden with meaning for collectors of Irish Provincial silver.  They are all represented in the James Adam At Home timed online auction which will begin to close at 11 am on February 23.  It is unusual to have such an array of Cork and Limerick makers in one auction.A pair of chased sauceboats by William Egan is dated to 1911.  Otherwise all the pieces on offer – bowls, jugs, ladles, beakers, sugar tongs, serving spoons – range in date from 1760 to 1820.  Estimates are from €120 for a c1820 fiddle pattern serving spoon by Joseph Gibson to €800, the top estimate for three lots: a pair of c1760 Hanoverian patterned spoons by Joseph Johns of Limerick; a pair of hook handle serving spoons by the same maker and a c1790 silver beaker by John Nicholson.  Limerick silver is even rarer than Cork silver and a soup ladle by William Ward of Limerick is estimated at €300-€500.There are 431 lots on offer including more than 100 lots of furniture and 74 lots of jewellery. UPDATE: A pair of Hanoverian spoons c1760 and a pair of hook handled serving spoons c1760 both by Joseph Johns of Limerick made 4,200 and 2,000 respectively at hammer. A silver helmeted cream jug by James Warner, Cork made 1,500 and a c1790 sugar bowl by John Williams, Cork made 1,400.

    George III bright cut silver ladle by William Ward of Limerick (€300-€500). UPDATE: This made 240 at hammer