Nearly 300 clocks from one collection will come under the hammer at Keighery’s auction in Waterford on January 13. This lifetime collection from a single estate (a bungalow) offers an impressive array of vintage and collectible clocks from prestigious Irish and English makers. Assembled over the decades it comprises 200 antique wall clocks, 28 longcase clocks, mantel clocks and pocket watches. The most expensively estimated is a lady’s Patek Phillippe watch in 18 carat gold specifically made for a client in 1882 with the original receipt (€2,000-€4,000). A c1770 longcase clock by Thomas Cahill, Waterford is estimated at €2,000-€3,000. Many lots have low estimates. Among them are a single fusee wall clock by Mangans of Cork (€250-€350), a Victorian paper mache clock with pendulum (€120-€180), a Dublin longcase clock in Chippendale style (€800-€1,200) and a marble clock and barometer retailed by Davis and Sons, London (€300-€500).
The sale includes more than 80 original advertising signs and the catalogue, with 470 lots in total, is online. Thomas Keighery said: “There is a great interest in this particular auction, we can see a new cohort of bidders from all across the world. We have bidders registered from the UK, France, and the USA all across Europe. We have bidders from all across Ireland and we are expecting a full house next Monday in Waterford – home of the Irish Museum of Time.”
Jeff Beck’s iconic 1954 Oxblood Gibson Les Paul guitar will lead the auction of his collection at Christie’s in London on January 22. The multi Grammy award winning artist worked with artists like Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Ronnie Wood, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Tina Turner, Mick Jagger, BB King, Nile Rodger, Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder, Imelda May and Johnny Depp. He was twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The auction comprises over 130 guitars, amps and accessories from a career that lasted almost six decades, since joining The Yardbirds in 1965 to his last tour in 2022. The Oxblood is estimated at £350,000-£500,000 (€421,380-€601,970) and estimates are from £100 (€120) up.
UPDATE: THE GUITAR SOLD FOR £1,068,500, double the high estimate and a new world record for a Gibson Les Paul.
This white marble chimney piece of inverted breakfront design features at Mullen’s classic and contemporary interiors timed online auction at Laurel Park, Bray, which runs until January 5. The estimate is €2,500-3,500. There are 653 lots on the catalogue with 208 lots of furniture and 66 lots of art. The top furniture lot is a circular Chinese rosewood inlaid table (€3,000-4,000).
19th century padauk gallery back side table. UPDATE: THIS MADE 550 AT HAMMER
This profusely carved 19th century padauk side table with gallery back comes up at Sean Eacrett’s timed New Year auction which runs until January 5. The estimate is €500-€800. It is lot 737 in a sale of more than 1,300 lots which includes Lady Lavery £100 notes, furniture, jewellery, Oriental rugs, art and collectibles. The catalogue is online.
GEORGE II CORK SILVER JUG. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,600 AT HAMMER
Watches, jewellery and a Cork silver jug are among feature lots at Hegarty’s live online auction on January 8. A total of 350 lots, among them this c1750 cream jug by George Hodder (€2,400-€3,400) will come under the hammer. A yellow gold acquamarine and diamond ring and a diamond and ruby cluster ring are each estimated at €2,500-€3,500 and the sale will feature some antique furniture, art, silver and collectibles.
Murano glass and glided metal lily pad wall light originally from The Savoy Hotel London (€500-1,000) UPDATE; THESE WERE UNSOLD
Lily pad Murano glass wall lights once at the Savoy Hotel in London, a pair of gilded bronze tables in the Maison Jansen style, a silk and metal thread Oriental rug, a 1900’s Louis Vuitton travelling trunk and a rare pair of nearly life size wooden ancestral figures from Sulawesi Island, Indonesia all feature at Victor Mee’s spectacular end of year interiors online sale on December 30. More than 800 lots will come under the hammer and they will be on view in Cloverhill, Co. Cavan on December 28 and 29.
One of a pair of nearly life size wooden ancestral figures from Sulawesi Island Indonesia (€1,500-3,000).
Argor-Heraeus Switzerland Fine 999.9 100 Gram Gold Bar Encapsulated. UPDATE: THIS MADE 6,350 AT HAMMER
All that glisters or just gold? The choice is yours at Matthews annual two day holiday auction online on December 29 and 30. There will be viewing in Kells on December 28 and 29 for a sale that includes gold bars and sovereigns, Kruggerands and various coins and medals along with jewellery and silver and antiques and art. Prime lots include this 100 gram gold bar (€5,000-€8,000) and a pair of 1920’s old European cut diamond set earrings weighing 2.2 carats each (€12,000-€18,000). Gold hit new highs in 2024 and the forecast price for 2025 looks positive, though that could change.
Pair of 1920’s old European cut diamond set earrings. UPDATE: THESE MADE 12,000 AT HAMMER
Titian’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt sold for a record-breaking £17.6 million in July
Christie’s is projecting $5.7 billion in global sales in 2024, down 6% on $6.1 billion in 2023. Auction sales at $4.2 billion were down by 16% ($5 billion in 2023) and private sales at $1.5 billion were up by 41%. A total of 81% of bids were placed online compared with 78% the previous year. A company statement said that in 2024 Christie’s experienced a strengthening of auction sales as the year progressed, together with outstanding results for private sales throughout.
“Our key performance indicators of overall sell through rate of 86%, hammer vs. low estimate index at 112% and bidders per lot of 3.7 all showed growth year over year, indicating that our strategy and focus resonated with sellers and buyers. We sold the most valuable work of the year René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières for $121.2 million from the Mica Ertegun collection; the only lot to sell for over $100 million globally. Christie’s also sold the most valuable jewel of the year, The Eden Rose, for $13.4 million in New York in June.
The America’s contrubuted around 41% to global sales, Europe, the Middle East and Africa contributed around 32%.
The earliest surviving inscribed tablet of the Ten Commandments, incised during the late Roman-Byzantine era, comes up at Sotheby’s in New York on December 18. The only complete example of a ten commandments tablet from this era – 300-800 AD – is estimated at $1 million – $2 million. The white marble table is chisel-inscribed with the Mosaic Ten Commandments in their Israelite Samaritan version, 20 lines in a Paleo-Hebrew script, each line containing between eleven and fifteen characters, with margins of about 10 cm on either side; the letters have a width of between one and 2 cm and words are separated from one another with one or two dots; a few letters are confused for each other (especially ? and ?) and a few characters on the right side of the first two lines are effaced and re-inscribed.
Weighing 115 pounds and measuring approximately two feet in height, it is now called the Yavne Tablet after the city on the coastal plain of the Land of Israel near where it was?rediscovered more than a century ago. This monumental, incised marble slab was serendipitously uncovered during excavations for a railroad track running through the Land of Israel to Egypt. The significance of the discovery went unrecognised for many decades, and for thirty years it served as a paving stone in a local home.
The Place of Writing by Seamus Heaney from the collection of Seamus Deane UPDATE: THIS MADE 700 AT HAMMER
There are treasures, gifts, once off items and many desirable rarities among a cornucopia of good things at the timed online At Home auction on view this weekend at James Adam in Dublin.
Literary and theatre types will be interested in a collection of books from Seamus Deane, classmate and close friend of Seamus Heaney. Together with Heaney, Brian Friel, Stephen Rea, Tom Paulin and David Hammond, Deane was a founding director of the Field Day Theatre Company, which began in Derry 1980 as a cultural and intellectual response to the political crisis in Northern Ireland. Friel’s critically acclaimed Translations was the first of many Field Day plays to stage at Derry’s Guildhall before travelling throughout Ireland and the world.
Much of the collection, which makes up the first 41 lots, comprises first edition signed copies of Seamus Heaney works at reasonable estimates.
Lot 54 is a 1938 presentation copy of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, one of only 200 printed. The estimate is €2,000-€3,000.
A black painted timber two door cabinet UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,100 AT HAMMER
The catalogue cover lot is a distressed black painted timber two door cabinet with outset cornice and glazed doors. It would work well in a contemporary setting and the estimate is just €500-€800. Furniture highlights include a mahogany and brass bound military chest (€1,800-€2,200), a pair of Howard style armchairs (€1,000-€1,500), a pair of compact leather upholstered armchairs (€2,500-€3,000), a club fender (€2,000-€3,000) and a c1820 secretaire bookcase (€2,000-€3,000).
A good selection of quality antique furniture comes in at estimates of under €1,000.
T’is the season and the Christmassy feel to this sale is boosted by lots like a collection of 13 vintage jigsaw puzzles (€150-€250), various silver sauce boats, a set of five green cylindrical glasses, dinner and tea services, Meissen parrots, Irish cut glass 19th century decanters, German figural candelabra, toleware jardinieres and even a cased croquet set for when the evenings get longer.
There is a good selection of silver and no doubt collectors will be taken by a c1706 Queen Anne silver two handled porringer (€800-€1,200).
A Chinese lacquer pagoda shrine. UPDATE: THIS MADE 340 AT HAMMER
Curiosities like a 19th century timber spoon rack, a Chinese lacquer pagoda shrine and a 19th century Indian olive glass bottle diorama add interest to a catalogue with nearly 500 lots There is no shortage of glassware for those hell bent on stylish entertaining during this festive season.
No At Home auction would be complete without art and this one offers beautiful nautical paintings by Edwin Hayes, Peter Ellenshaw and Daniel Sherrin. This timed online sale gets underway at 11 am next Wednesday. It is on view at Adams from 1 pm to 5 pm today and tomorrow and from 10 am to 5 pm on Monday.
An early Victorian flame mahogany sofa table. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
