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IRISH GEORGE III CARVED GILTWOOD WALL MIRROR. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This Irish George III carved giltwood wall mirror is at The Library Sale at Adams in Dublin on April 29. Fitted with plain glass and complete with a depiction of a castle within a scroll cartouche flanked by opposing ho-ho birds it is estimated at €10,000-€15,000. The auction will be on view in Dublin from April 25 and the catalogue is online.
MAURICE SENDAK (1928-2012) – Where the Wild Things Are [New York]: Harper & Row, 1963 First edition, first state, from the author’s library Estimate: $6,000-9,000. UPDATE: THIS MADE $5,670
An unprecedented opportunity to explore the images and ideas that fed the imagination of one of the most beloved picture book artists in history, Maurice Sendak, is coming to Christie’s New York. The Maurice Sendak, Artist, Collector, Connoisseur sale will run as a live auction on June 10 and online from May 29-June 12. His books have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. The sales will present more than 100 works by artists who inspired Sendak and almost 30 original works by Sendak himself.
Sendak’s taste ranged across the past 500 years and from textiles, to toys, to Chinese ceramics. The sale offers some of the great names in art history: Dürer, Rembrandt, Picasso, and Hockney with a special emphasis on British artists, including William Blake, but also George Stubbs, Henry Fuseli, and Samuel Palmer. There are works by children’s authors including Beatrix Potter and Eric Carle, as well as objects featuring Sendak’s lifelong inspiration, Mickey Mouse.
UPDATE: THE SALE TOTAL WAS $4.8 MILLION
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) Songs of Innocence Printed by the author, 1789. Estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000. UPSDATE: THIS MADE $1,260,000
A complete set of the Journals of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. UPDATE: THIS MADE 550 AT HAMMER.
A complete set of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society Journals from 1892-2024, the catalogue for the auction of contents from Bowen’s Court in North Cork by Marshs on April 20-21 in 1960 and 42 copies of the Hibernian Chronicle newspaper, Cork in 1789-1790 are among the treasures to be found at Lynes and Lynes on April 26.
On auction is the private library of 95 year old historian Richard Hinchion who spent a lifetime recording gravestone inscriptions and collecting books. There are four volumes on Buttevant, Castletownroche, Doneraile and Mallow by Col. James Grove White along with copies of The Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook and The Resurrection of Hungary by Arthur Griffith. A plentiful selection of sporting material includes GAA programmes from the 1940’s. Viewing is underway at Lynes and Lynes in Carrigtwohill and continues until next Friday from 10 am to 5 pm each day. The catalogue is online.
Two All Ireland Hurling Championship programmes from 1954 and 1956 UPDATE: THESE MADE 240 AT HAMMER
1903 All Ireland Football Championship medal at Fonsie Mealy. UPDATE: THIS MADE €8,000 at hammer
The Kingdom’s first All Ireland football championship in 1903, objects that might grace a great library or Modernist design spearheaded by Mies van der Rohe are among the array of fabulous choices at auction right now.
The market is positively heaving with the sort of lot that will set the pulses of serious collectors racing.
Among the highlights at Fonsie Mealy’s two day rare book and collectors sale in Castlecomer starting on April 30 is a 1903 All Ireland Football Championship medal. In the 17th staging of the competition Kerry, under the captaincy of Thady O’Gorman beat London, captained by Sam Maguire on a scoreline of 0-11 to 0-3 in front of a crowd of 10,000 at Jones Road. The historic nine carat gold inscribed and hallmarked Celtic Cross design medal in the auction is estimated at €5,000-€7,000. Kerry won back to back football championships and a 1904 winners medal is estimated at €3,500-€5,000. In 1904 the team was captained by Austin Stack.
Portrait of John Byron from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds at Adams. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
From a portrait of Captain Byron, grandfather of the poet, to a Carthaginian terracotta figure of the Tanith, mother goddess of fertility and the moon, the annual library collection sale at James Adam on April 29 is brimful of interest. The portrait of John Byron (1723-1786), also known as Foul Weather Buck, from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. Once shipwrecked off Chile he was considered one of the finest sailors in England who circumnavigated the globe and claimed various Pacific islands for the crown. His numerous expeditions are commemorated in a line inscribed in the gilt frame from Byron’s Epistle to Augusta: Our grandsires fate of yore/He had no rest at sea.
A pair of brown leather button back armchairs at Adams. UPDATE: THESE MADE €2,800 at hammer
Desks, models of yachts and even a carved marble head of a philosopher once decorated many grand libraries and can be found here too. An important consideration in any library is a comfortable chair or two. This sale has the most seductive looking examples including a pair of brown leather button back armchairs and a pair of nicely worn Victorian armchairs designed for extreme comfort. Why anyone would ever construct a chair that is not comfortable is beyond me though sadly they exist in plenty.
The Barcelona day bed designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1930 is a comfortable classic to be found at de Veres Art and Design auction on April 29. In brown leather created from a single hide and labelled Knoll International it is estimated at €6,000-€8,000. Among the pioneers of modern architecture Mies was the last director of the Bauhaus before emigrating to the US after the rise of Nazism. In a furniture market flooded with replicas this auction offers unique items of quality in both art and design. The catalogues for these three sales are online.
Barcelona day bed by Mies van der Rohe at de Veres. UPDATE: THIS MADE 6,000 AT HAMMER
The Golconda Blue – the largest fancy vivid blue diamond ever to be offered at auction – comes up at Christie’s in Geneva on May 14 with an estimate of $35 – 50 million. Weighing an extraordinary 23.24 carats and perfectly mounted in a ring by JAR it ranks among the rarest and most important diamonds.
Tpear-shaped diamond boasts a remarkable provenance rooted in Indian Royalty. Yeshwant Rao Holkar, the Maharaja of Indore and a member of the Holkar dynasty, was known—alongside his wife—for a lifestyle defined by elegance and cosmopolitan sophistication in the 1920s and ’30s. A Knight of the Order of the Indian Empire, the Maharaja spent much of his time abroad, cultivating a strong affinity for Western art, design, and jewellery. In 1913, his father acquired the famed Indore Pear diamonds from Chaumet, marking the beginning of a long-standing relationship with the historic Parisian Maison. In 1923, during another visit to Chaumet, he commissioned a diamond bracelet set with his own 23-carat pear-shaped Golconda blue diamond.
Yeshwant Rao Holkar appointed Mauboussin as his official jeweller in 1933. Thereafter, Mauboussin reimagined much of the Maharaja’s collection and created the exceptional necklace including the Golconda Blue and the Indore Pears. Holkar collaborated with other iconic jewelers, including Harry Winston. In 1946, Mr. Winston purchased the Indore Pears from the Maharaja, and the following year, in January 1947, he acquired this 23-carat blue diamond. Winston later set it in a brooch alongside a matching 23-carat white diamond, which he sold to the Maharaja of Baroda. The brooch was subsequently reacquired by Mr. Winston and resold as a newly designed jewel to its current owner.
It is now at auction for the first time. UPDATE: THE STONE WAS PULLED FROM THE SALE AFTER IT WAS REPORTED THAT THE OWNERS DECIDED TO SELL IT WITHIN THE FAMILY.
Rare Irish delftware shell pickle stand or epergne, circa 1760. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £4,480
This very rare Irish delftware shell pickle stand or epergne comes up at Bonhams in London on April 15. Made around 1760, probably in Dublin, it is from the collection of the late antiquarian Graham Slater. With three tiers formed of seven upturned scallop shells lot 155 is estimated at £1,200-£1,800 (€1,400-€2,100).
The Trinity by Sean Keating. UPDATE: THIS MADE €13,000 AT HAMMER
There is no shortage of spectacular vernacular at the next James Adam timed online auction which draws to a close from 11 am on April 16. The title of the auction – Irish Vernacular – might suggest ordinary common or garden lots but nothing could be further from the truth.
The sale is a celebration of very fine Irish skill and creativity down through the centuries. The artist Sean Keating gives us a different take on a well worn subject. In The Trinity – at €10,000-€15,000 the most expensively estimated lot – the traditional figures have been substituted with three ordinary people from the west of Ireland. The arched canvas is reminiscent of traditional altar pieces but the figure in the centre, the position most often associated with Christ, is a woman in a tartan shawl standing in front of a donkey and cart.
18th century Irish limestone chimneypiece from Tipperary. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,600 AT HAMMER
Among other leading lots are a c1750 Irish silver dish ring made in Dublin but lacking a maker’s mark, an 18th century Irish limestone chimney piece from Tipperary with its original carved sandstone inset, a Roscommon grey limestone chimney piece with moulded top, a c1940 Celtic Revival silver tray, an 18th carat gold antique Claddagh ring, a 19th century painted pine settle bench and an Irish naturalistic log bucket.
Two large Carrigaline Pottery jugs UPDATE: THESE WERE UNSOLD
Irish Vernacular covers as multitude, from a cased diorama of a three masted schooner in full sail on choppy seas, a painted timber model of a currach and another of a Galway Hooker to three Irish limestone specimens on stands, a cast iron weather vane with a silhouette of a hunter and his hound in pursuit of a rabbit, a milking stool, a carved duck decoy, wrought iron gates and a Tara brooch.
The auction offers opportunities to pick up something for a song that with just a little imagination could be turned into a conversation piece or converted to a more modern decorative use. An Irish Victorian green painted footbath, stamped Maguire & Catchell, Dublin, is estimated at €100-€200, a limestone duck trough at €300-€400, a timber butter paddle and mould at €50-€100 and a black painted cast iron pot at €80-€120.
There is a selection of pine and painted pine cupboards, an oak linen press, an Irish oak cradle, an oak wall cabinet, wash stands, kitchen tables and desks. chairs, stools, boxes and wall hangers. An Irish lustre ware ceramic bowl, pottery jugs from Arklow and Carrigaline, mugs and hot water jugs will stimulate collectors with an eye to nostalgia.
A small selection of bygone advertising material includes an Admiral brand famous rum sign by John Daly and Co., Cork, a Perry’s Ale mirror and a Jacob’s Cream Crackers sign. There is art by Markey Robinson, Maurice MacGonigal, Rowland Hill, Erskine Nicol among a total of 260 lots.
An Admiral brand advertising sign by John Daly and Co. Cork. UPDATE: THIS MADE 110 AT HAMMER
Art Nouveau style birdbath. UPDATE: THIS MADE 220 AT HAMMER
Opportunities to spring into outdoor action abound at the annual garden sale by R.J. Keighery in Waterford on April 14. Cast iron garden seats in gothic and other styles, glazed and cast iron urns, stone troughs, a pair of large terracotta lions, staddle stones or mushrooms, even some anvils to forge a nod to the past with potential to find a hitherto unforeseen new use in some sunny or shady spot.
In the 21st century gardens are for living in and this sale offers oodles of decor to enhance suburban spaces and balconies of any size among more than 700 lots. Gothic style mirrors could work in many spaces and a magnificent pair of forged black powder coated and galvanised entrance gates will undoubtedly be just the ticket for someone. There ought to be demand for some salvaged forged field gates too. The sale, with its selection of old cast iron water pumps, birdbaths, lanterns and blue porcelain conservatory seats, is on view today and tomorrow and the catalogue is online.
A PAINTED TIMBER MODEL OF A GALWAY HOOKER. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,300 AT HAMMER
This painted timber model of a Galway hooker is at Adams timed online Irish Vernacular sale on April 16. A total of 260 lots will come under the hammer, including Irish silver, oak and pine furniture, lustre ware, wrought iron gates and duck decoys. The catalogue is online and the auction will be on view from April 12.
Juliens will hold the largest ever auction of Princess Diana’s wardrobe in Beverly Hills on June 26. More than 200 lots will come under the hammer. A week before the collection goes live, Princess Diana items will be on exhibition in Newbridge, Ireland at The Museum of Style Icons (MOSI) from mid May until mid June 2025. The auction will feature pieces from British royal history, including couture garments from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and historic items belonging to Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen Mother, and royal treasures dating as far back as the 19th century. In 2023 one of Diana’s gowns sold for $1.14 million at Julien’s and in 2024 a pair of her shoes achieved $390,000 at auction.
