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A 19th century bog oak inkstand carved as owl is among the more unusual lots at Hegarty’s sale in Bandon, Co. Cork on February 19.   The National Museum of Ireland has a similar owl which bears a maker’s label of Cornelius Goggin, who bore the title “Irish bog oak carver to Her Majesty” (Queen Victoria) in the business of carving bog oak artefacts at 13, Nassau Street Dublin, as early as the 1860’s.

Bog oak is a black hardwood from the bogs of Ireland used for carving various objects. This piece is over one foot tall and is estimated at 2,000-4,000. More than 350 lots will come under the hammer at this auction.

UPDATE:  This sold for 1,950.

The historic match ticket to the Bloody Sunday game. (Click on image to enlarge)

AN historic GAA ticket with a difference sold for 5,400 at auction in Co. Clare on February 14.  The ticket to the infamous Bloody Sunday match at Croke Park in 1920 at which 14 unarmed spectators were shot dead aroused huge interest.  Bidders competed on the internet and the telephone, but it was knocked down to a buyer in the room at The Auction Rooms, Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare. The game between Tipperary and Dublin became a turning point in the Anglo-Irish War. In March 2007 another ticket from the game made 7,500 in Dublin.

Bloody Sunday at Croke Park is such a seminal part of modern Irish history that Queen Elizabeth’s trip to the stadium during her historic first visit to the Irish Republic last May is regarded as an important new act of Anglo-Irish reconciliation.

Buen Retiro group of Italian Comedy spaghetti eaters. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD.

Exceptional Meissen figures feature at a single owner collection sale at Sotheby’s  in London on March 14.  The collection of Giovanni and Gabriella Barilla includes some of the earliest Commedia dell’Arte figures and some of the rarest groups of Capodimonte and Buen Retiro ever offered on the market. Venetian eighteenth-century furniture and paintings, sixteenth-century majolica, silver and a group of illuminated books of Hours are included among more than 400 lots.

Meissen figure of a Harlequin modelled by J.J. Kandler. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS MADE £121,250.

Highlights include a Buen Retiro group of Italian Comedy spaghetti eaters c1770 modelled by Giuseppe Gricci  (£15,000 – 25,000), a set of four engraved Venetian mirrors (£40,000 – 60,000), a 17th-century Marco and Sebastiano Ricci oil on canvas titled A capriccio of classical Roman ruins (£150,000- 200,000) and a group of Meissen figures from the Weissenfels series. A rare Meissen Figure of Harlequin with pug as a hurdy-gurdy, modelled by  J.J. Kandler, circa 1738-1740 is estimated at £25,000-35,000.

Descendants of the founder of the most important pasta producer in the world, Giovanni Barilla and in particular his wife Gabriella created one of the greatest collections of ceramics and porcelain in Europe.  The collection is from their residence in Geneva.

“The porcelain collection was formed as a result of Gabriella Barilla’s exhaustive research and passion – guided by the advice of international experts – resulting in one of the most important collections of European porcelain” according to Mario Tavella, Sotheby’s deputy chairman, Europe. “Giovanni, on the other hand, sought only the most elegant furniture for their home, and of which much has been published and originally belonged to Ing. Giuseppe Gatti Casazza, who left most of his collection to the Museo di Arti Decorative at Ca’Rezzonico in Venice.”

The Irish Silver tankard by the Cork maker Robert Goble sold for $31,250 in New York.

WHAT was billed in New York as a George II silver tankard turned out to be a Cork piece and sold for more than 30 times its top estimate. Lot 292 at the Doyle New York sale of important furniture and Old Master paintings was a silver tankard of cylindrical form with rubbed marks. It was estimated at $700-1,000.  The catalogue noted that further research indicated it might be of Irish origin.

Irish silver dealers immediately recognised the Cork marks when photos of the eight inch high tankard appeared on the internet just days before the auction.  They were outbid at the sale by the international trade and it was knocked down for $31,250 including buyers premium.

The tankard is a Queen Anne/George I piece. It was made in Cork by Robert Goble, who worked in the city from 1672 to 1719.  It was marked with his initials and with the two castles and gallery mark based on the Arms of the City of Cork used by local silversmiths. Robert Goble, the maker of the 1696 Mace of the Trade Guilds of the City of Cork now at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, died in 1719 and is buried in the Huguenot Cemetary on French Church St. in the heart of the city.

Audubon's Great Blue Heron. (Click to enlarge).

Audubon's Columbia Jay. (Click to enlarge).

WHAT could turn out to be the world’s most expensive book will be auctioned by Christie’s in New York on January 20.  John James Audubon’s The Birds of America: The Duke of Portland Set is estimated at $7-10 million, but could go higher.  Completed and published over eleven years from 1827 to 1838, this magnificent four volume set of 435 hand-colored engravings is one of only a few known unbound copies in existence.  At the present time, 107 copies remain in institutions and 13 are in private hands. A new world record for a printed book sold at auction was established at Sotheby’s in London for another copy in December 2010 when one sold for  £7,321,250.

The monumental format of this work (double elephant folios of over 3 ft. high) was due to Audubon’s insistence on life-size illustrations and his determination to depict all the known species found in North America. (All images copyright Christie’s Images).  (See post on antiquesandartireland.comfor December 7, 2010).

UPDATE:  IT SOLD FOR $7.9 MILLION WHICH WAS WITHIN ESTIMATE BUT FAR SHORT OF THE RECORD OF AN EQUIVALENT $11.5 MILLION DOLLARS  IN 2010 IN LONDON.

Audubon's Carolina Parrot. (Click on image to enlarge).

Audubon's Wild Turkey. (Click to enlarge).

This Sheffield silver plated wine cooler was a gift from George Washington. (Click to enlarge). UPDATE: IT MADE $782,500

THIS Sheffield plated silver wine cooler, a gift from George Washington, is at Christie’s sale of Important American Silver in New York on January 19. He gave it to the founding father and first US Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in 1797.

The four-bottle wine cooler is an exceptionally well documented historical object, symbolizing the famous partnership between Washington and Hamilton in the early days of the republic. Never before seen by the public, it is being sold by direct descendants of Alexander Hamilton. It is estimated at $400,000-600,000.

UPDATE:  It sold for $782,500 in a sale of 88 lots that brought in a total of $2,028,000.