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A selection of marine items such as a vintage sextant, a brass ships clock and a mariners compass will come up at the online only sale at Woodwards in Cork on July 18. Estimates for antique furniture like a Georgian Irish sideboard (€400-€600), a Victorian davenport (€300-€500) and a Georgian longcase clock (€200-€400) are low. The sale is online at Easy Live Auctions.
The combined total for Sotheby’s flagship summer sales in Paris, Geneva, New York and Hong Kong has reached almost US$900 million. In Hong Kong last week 3,794 lots sold across 17 auctions in seven days. The re-scheduled spring sales brought in US$411 million with global participation from nearly 40 countries and 90% of lots sold over the phone, on the internet or through absentee bids. Sanyu’s Quatre Nus was sold fr US$33.3 million after a four-way ten-minute bidding battle.
A landmark of Irish printed literature, a fine collection of Cork silhouettes and a print of a sorry massacre at Rathcormac, Co. Cork in 1834 are among the lots at Fonsie Mealy’s timed online collectors sale which runs until July 15. An Incunabula – a book printed before 1501 – is always a rarity. This first edition of the first book by an Irish author to write for a printing press rather than the scriptorum dates to November 1497 and was printed in Venice. The author is Archbishop Maurice O’Fihely of Tuam, a native of Baltimore in west Cork. O’Fihely, a Franciscan, provided major commentary on the investigation of Scottish Franciscan Blessed John Duns, known as Duns Scotus, into Aristotle’s metaphysical problems. Together with Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, Duns Scotus is regarded as one of the three most important philosopher theologians of Western Europe in the High Middle Ages. O’Fihely, taught in Milan and Padua and became censor of the press in Venice. He is probably the first Irishman to play a major role in the new world of printing. Appointed Archbishop of Tuam by Pope Julius II in 1506, he returned to Ireland in 1512 and died the following year. This first edition is lot 311 of the sale and is estimated at €8,000-€12,000.
The estimate of €400-€600 on three caricature silhouettes of Parnell and Kitty O’Shea may turn out to be conservative given the epic nature of the scandal of an affair which led to his downfall as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The silhouettes by Cork lithographer and silhouettist Stephen O’Driscoll (c1825-1895) depict the pair at Brighton in the sunshine, on a moonlight tryst and showing Parnell trying to climb up to her balcony unaware that her husband is watching.Lot 458 is a collection of 18 O’Driscoll silhouettes highlighting local celebrities and events. Most are captioned and some have pencilled notes identifying various individuals. Among them are a pair of Cork butter merchants, Sir John Arnott, brewer at Fitton St. and 91 South Mall, B.J. Alcock, grocer 75 Patrick St., Charles K.D. Tanner M.D. Lapps Quay, William J. Cummins M.D, 11 South Mall, Matthew P. Bolster, grocer, 79 Patrick St., Edward G. Ashe, vet, 36 Georges St., Paul Madden, grocer and wine merchant, Bridge St., Richard O’Callaghan M.D. 40 South Mall and Sir George Colthurst, 6th Bart (1850-1925). The set is estimated at €1,000-€1,500.Lot 478 is an Irish tithe print entitled The Massacre at Gortroe. The hand coloured lithographic print after a drawing by Fr. Mat Horgan depicts one of the most infamous battles of the Tithe wars in Ireland between 1830-36. This was mostly a campaign of civil disobedience because of the imposition of tithes on the mostly catholic population for the upkeep of the Church of Ireland. There was sporadic violence. On December 18, 1834 the massacre at Gortroe, otherwise known as the Rathcormac massacre, took place when a force of 100 soldiers fired on 250 locals on the order of Archdeacon William Ryder who was attempting to collect his tithes. This resulted in the deaths of 20 residents. The litho is estimated at €200-€300.There are sporting programmes including the All-Ireland Hurling Finals of 1946, ’49, ’50, ’52, ’56, ’58, ’60 and ’63, cinema posters, banknotes, cheques, literature, coins, whiskeys and a variety of other collectibles among 632 lots. The timed auction ends from 2 pm on July 15.
An excessively rare piece of Irish silver, the Commonwealth/Charles II two-handled porringer, comes up at Whyte’s Eclectic Collector sale in Dublin on July 25. Known as the ‘IS’ Porringer and with the maker’s mark unidentified it was made in Dublin around 1659/60. The piece is of plain form with scroll handles and engraved ‘IS’ within a wreath. It was sold for £3,000 (the equivalent of €61,000 in 2020) by How of Edinburgh at the 1967 Grosvenor House Antique Dealers’ Fair and is now estimated at 50,000-70,000.
The sale features a wealth of historically important material including The Wolfe Tone Archive, The Thomas Ashe Archive, 1798 and 1916 Proclamations, 1916 Rising medals, uniforms and weapons, collectibles from the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, including the archive of Loyalist leader William ‘Plum’ Smith and a unique collection of ephemera related to Count John McCormack. Part 1 of the sale on July 25 at Freemason’s Hall, Molesworth St. in Dublin will be followed on July 26 by a timed online only auction.
A first edition of The Crescent Moon, a 1913 book by the world renowned Bengali Poet Tagore Rabindranath Tagore with an introduction by the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, comes up at Fonsie Mealy’s summer collectors sale online until July 15. They met in 1912 and Yeats was instrumental in promoting Tagore to western audiences. Song Offerings was published by MacMillan and Co. and the book is estimated at 100-150.
Within weeks of smuggling guns from Germany to the Irish Volunteers on board the Asgard in 1914 Robert Erskine Childers was called up. His call up papers were delivered to the headquarters of the Irish Volunteers, a move akin today to asking a white supremacist to speak at a Black Lives Matter rally. The author of The Riddle of the Sands became a decorated British naval officer. His sword in gilt brass and leather scabbard is lot 91 at Mullen’s Collector’s Cabinet auction in Bray next Saturday (July 11). Engraved “R E Childers” it is estimated at €3,000-€5,000. Robert Erskine Childers was executed in 1922 by the nascent Irish Free State during the Civil War. Erskine Childers, the Fianna Fail politician who became Ireland’s fourth president, was his son.
The Collector’s Cabinet is a postponed sale originally scheduled for March 28. The 572 lots can be viewed online at The Saleroom. Among them are a copy of Error of Judgement by Chris Mullin signed by the author, the Birmingham Six and solicitor Gareth Peirce. It is estimated at €300-€500. There are 110 lots of Irish and international bank notes from the collection of Patrick Browne, secretary of the Cork Philatelic Society who began collecting banknotes in the 1990’s. Estimates range from €80-€2,500. Among the scarcest of the sporting lots are a competitors badge from the 1908 London Olympic Games and an officials badge from the 1924 Paris Games, immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire.
A set of 12 William IV rosewood dining chairs with an estimate of €3,000-€5,000 is the most expensively estimated lot at the James Adam At Home online sale in Dublin on July 5. Bidding options for this 347 lot sale of antique furniture, paintings, books, jewellery, silver and collectibles are available at Adams. A c1780 Limerick silver tablespoon by Morris Fitzgerald is estimated at €300-€400 and a pair of large Meissen models of exotic birds carry an estimate of €1,000-€2,000.There are Waterford Crystal chandeliers, rugs, mirrors, Sevres urns, a wine cooler and a 19th century giltwood marble topped console table. A selection of Chinese export porcelain will generate interest. One of the more unusual lots is Robert Morrissons (1782-1834) 19th century dictionary of the Chinese language. In three parts this is estimated at €3,000-€4,000. A Russian Gardener porcelain figure of a glazier made in Moscow in the 19th century is estimated at €1,000-€1,500. UPDATE: The dictionary sold for a hammer price of 12,000, the Gardener porcelian made 2,800 and the chairs made 3,000.
There will be three days of online sales by Aidan Foley at Sixmilebridge in Co. Clare on July 5, 6 and 7. Around 1,500 lots are to come under the hammer including house contents from Blackrock in Cork city, Ennis, Castleconnell and Limerick city. There is Irish art by James Humbert Craig, George Gillespie, Arthur Maderson and Markey Robinson. Antique furniture lots include a pair of Victorian library bookcases, a Victorian five leaf dining table and a collection of wing back library chairs. There are light fittings, pub memorabilia, posters, Waterford Crystal, Persian rugs, musical instruments, books, garden statuary and jewellery. The sales will be online at Easy Live Auctions.
A Swiss made gold pocket watch with historic British connections comes up at O’Donovan’s auction in Newcastlewest Co. Limerick on July 4. It was presented by Stanley Owen Buckmaster, who served as Lord Chancellor in the Asquith coalition government of 1915-16 during the First World War, to an old friend in memory of his father John Charles Buckmaster who died in 1908. John Charles Buckmaster was the founder of Teddington Library near Twickenham in London in 1904. The auction is online at Easy Live Auction and the watch is estimated at 300-400.
A total of 132 lots of art and design will come under the hammer at deVeres next Tuesday evening at 6 pm. There is everything from smoked glass console tables to a set of nine 1970’s French dining chairs, Italian chrome and gilt open shelves to a Danish leather sofa. There are sideboards, low tables, Barcelona chairs, hanging lights, Art Deco dining chairs, Italian coffee tables, adjustable French floor lamps, low tables and mirrors. A selection of art to complement this design includes work by Charles Tyrrell, James O’Connor, Louis le Brocquy, Willie Evesson, Sean McSweeney, Eilis O’Connell and other artists. This auction is online at The Saleroom.
