Redbreast Complete Dream Cask Series UPDATE: THESE SOLD FOR £11,160
A selection of seven bottles of exceptional Irish whiskey from the celebrated Redbreast Dream Cask series leads the Finest Whisky and Spirits sale at Bonhams online from July 4-17. Redbreast has stayed true to the Irish pot still whiskey making tradition for more than a century and is considered to be the definitive expression of this quintessential style of Irish whiskey making. Also included in this lot is a luxury whiskey experience, visiting the home of Redbreast in Midleton, Co. Cork, Ireland, including tutored tastings, a personalised bottle of Redbreast, gourmet lunch and a 2-night stay in the 5-star Castlemartyr resort, a 17th-century manor house in East Cork. The Redbreast Dream Cask series is offered with an estimate of £8,000-14,000.
WB Yeats | ‘At the Hawk’s Well’, corrected typescript, and related material on his collaborations with Edmund Dulac. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £38,400
A corrected typescript by W. B. Yeats for At the Hawk’s Well and material related to his collaborations with Edmund Dulac comes up as lot 306 at Sotheby’s timed online sale of Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern in London on July 11. It includes a corrected typescript of At the Hawk’s Well, here entitled ‘The Well of Immortality’, annotated on the title page by Edmund Dulac (“Working Copy with notes by Ezra Pound & myself & corrections by W.B.Y.”), two typed letters signed, to Edmund Dulac, on the performance of At the Hawk’s Well at the Abbey Theatre, praising Dulac’s music and costume designs and other materials including a typescript of Dulac’s ‘Pan and Syrinx’, a parody of a Yeatsian Noh play, written during the final months of World War I when Dulac and his wife had escaped London for Cranleigh in Surrey. The estimate is £10,000-£15,000.
Pistols with which Napoleon once intended to kill himself were sold for €1.69 million at French auction house Osenat on July 7. Made by Paris gunmaker Louis-Marin Gosset and owned by Napoleon they had been estimated at €1.2 – €1.5 million. Inlaid with gold and silver they feature an engraved image of the Emperor. They were sold at Osenat Fontainbleu, near the palace where the French Emperor tied to take his own life following his abdication in 1814. France’s culture ministry recently classified them as national treasures and banned their export. The French government now has 30 months to make a purchase offer to the new owner.
Cork Regency brass fender. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,300 AT HAMMER
Sheppards will offer contents from St. Austins, Gorey, Co. Wexford on July 16 and 17 with viewing on the premises on July 13 and 14. More than 1,300 lots will be on offer and highlights include a large 19th century gilt overmantle, an 18th century Dublin longcase clock, a large Cork brass fender and art by Letitia M Hamilton, James Humbert Craig and Grace Henry. The sale will be held in Durrow and the catalogue is online now.
The Sunlit Valley, The Rosses, Co. Donegal by James Humbert Craig. UPDATE: THIS MADE 9,000 AT HAMMER
Art as an event in the Olympic Games was abandoned after 1948 because artists were considered to be professional and the games were for amateurs. That was then and this is now so our professional golfers Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, both qualified to represent Ireland at the games this year which get underway in Paris on July 26, have nothing to worry about.
At a time from 1912 to 1948 when medals were awarded for painting and sculpture inspired by sport, as well as to musicians, writers and architects, the northern Irish artist James Humbert Craig (1877-1944) was part of the Painting Event at the 1932 summer olympics in Los Angeles. He did not win but his landscapes are very highly regarded. One of them, an oil on canvas titled The Sunlit Valley, Rosses, Co. Donegal, will lead Fonsie Mealy’s Chatsworth summer art sale in Castlecomer on July 10 with an estimate of €6,000-€8,000. It is the most expensively estimated artwork at the sale.
The auction, on view in Castlecomer next Monday and Tuesday, features 345 lots of Irish and international art and sculpture along with Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian paintings.
Athlone Castle by James Lawson Stewart. UPDATE: THIS MADE 300 AT HAMMER
A topographical View of Athlone in 1853 from an elevated site attributed to George Vincent Cole is estimated at €300-€400 and a watercolour of Athlone Castle by British artist James Lawson Stewart (1829-1911) shows many features now disappeared (€400-€500). A hand coloured print of Edinburgh Castle from Holyrood House by Charles Windsor, now King of England, signed and dated on the lower right, is estimated at €800-€1,000. There is a similar estimate on an abstract landscape attributed to Andre Lhote.
Lot 261 is a bronze bust of Roger Casement attributed to Marshall Hutson. Though unsigned it is similar in style to the work of the Cork artist who died in 2001 and is estimated at €1,000-€1,500. Among his sculpted works is the stone crest of the City of Cork at the headquarters of Cork Harbour Commissioners at Custom House Street in Cork.
Ar an Costa by Daniel Corkery (1878-1964). UPDATE: THIS MADE 360 AT HAMMER
Ar an Costa is a watercolour of a coastal scene with figures on a beach by Daniel Corkery (1878-1964), a close friend of Terence McSwiney who became Professor of English at UCC in 1930. One of a group who established the Cork Dramatic Society in 1908 he wrote plays and short stories, played the cello, took night classes in painting at the Crawford and was author of The Hidden Ireland, a 1924 study of the poetry of 18th century Irish language poetry in Munster. Lot 44 at Mealy’s is estimated at €180-€220 and was formerly in the collection of An t’Athair Eric Mac Fhinn (1895-1987) of Galway.
There is a portrait of Walter Osborne by Augustus Burke (€3,000-€4,000), a pencil sketch of John O’Leary at trial by John Butler Yeats (€400-€500), a watercolour of the Rock of Cashel by Patrick Hennessy (€400-€600) and an oil of Country Cottages, Ireland c1810 by William Mulready (€700-€1,000) among a selection on offer that is both varied and affordable.
The sale will be on view in Castlecomer on July 8 and 9 and will begin at 2 pm on July 10. The catalogue is online. Nowadays the Venice Biennale is often referred to informally as the Olympics of art.
This Victor Edelstein magenta silk and lace evening dress sold for $910,000 (€849,890).
Celebrity adds value and when it comes to Princess Diana it does so in spades. A collection of her most famous gowns, suits, handbags and accessories was sold out at Julien’s in Hollywood in a sale that brought in $5.5 million (€5.13 million). Many of the pieces in the sale drew crowds to viewings at the Museum of Style Icons in Kildare in June and in Hong Kong, New York and Los Angeles.
The top lot was a magenta silk and lace evening dress by Victor Edelstein. It made $910,000 (€849,890) over a top estimate of $200,000 (€186,570). A navy blue silk blouse by Edelstein made $76,200 (€71,083) over a top estimate of $6,000 (€5,597). A midnight blue strapless tulle diamante star gown designed by Murray Arbeid made $780,000 (€727,620) over a top estimate of $200,000 (€186,570). A pair of Ferragamo pumps made $127,000 (€118,470). No less than 15 of the top lots went to Renae Plant, owner of the Princess Diana Museum in Los Angeles.
A signed Jacques Azagury illustration for a 1995 black evening gown made for Princess Diana.
GEORGE I BURR MAPLE BUREAU BOOKCASE. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,600 AT HAMMER
In Dublin James Adam will offer this George I burr maple bookcase in a timed online warehouse auction on July 10. The estimate is 2,000-4,000 and a starting bid of 200 is being sought at this stage. The bookcase is to be sold without reserve. In the manner of Coxted and Woster it is in three sections with arched mirrored doors, a fitted interior and a slope front desk. The sale will be on view in Dublin on July 8 and 9 and the catalogue, with 316 lots, is online.
A six seater Victorian carriage. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
IT is in need of restoration but this six seater Victorian carriage with a fringed canopy top takes pride of place at O’Donovan’s online sale in Newcastle West, Co. Limerick on July 10. On offer is the excess stock from the Old Irish Ways Museum near Bruff. A Surrey is defined as a popular American doorless four wheeled carriage with a variety of tops including a fringed canopy top so this one. though Irish, presumably fits the bill. It is, at 1,500-3,000, the most expensively estimated lot in an auction with 345 lots. The catalogue is online.
Rosewood sideboard by Gianfranco Frattini. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,000 AT HAMMER
This Italian rosewood credenza dates to the 1960’s and comes up at de Veres timed summer online art and design auction which runs until July 24. It was designed by Gianfranco Frattini for internationally renowned La Permanente Mobili Cantù with shelf gallery back above drawers with shaped handles, on metal legs. The estimate is 600-900. The auction of over 150 lots offers a selection of art along with furniture, lamps, mirrors and collectibles by renowned designers.
T.E. Lawrence | Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1926, Cranwell Edition, Col. Pierce Joyce’s copy. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £33,600
This copy of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom – an autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab Revolt – comes up at Sotheby’s in London on July 11 with an estimate of £26,000-£35,000. It is accompanied by a letter from Lawrence – subject of the film Lawrence of Arabia – to Galway born Colonel Pierce Joyce, expressing his relief that Joyce’s copy of Seven Pillars had reached him, expressing his own feelings about his book’s success, discussing Joyce’s recent retirement as military advisor to King Faisal of Iraq and move home to Ireland, mentioning his own Irish roots (“…We actually come from Killua, in Meath…”).
Col. Pierce Charles Joyce (1878-1965) had joined the Egyptian Army in 1907 and was a key figure in the British support of the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans from its outbreak in 1916. He was commanding officer of Operation Hedgehog, the British military mission to the new Arab army, meaning that for some time Lawrence was nominally under his command. In reality their work ran parallel, with Lawrence advising Emir Feisal – King of Iraq from 1921 to 1933 – on the Bedouin irregulars, and Joyce on the Arab Regulars. Joyce, like Lawrence, led operations against the Hejaz Railway; he also captured the Crusader Castle at Shobak, was responsible for logistical planning for the Allied advance northwards into Palestine, and commanded the armoured cars and artilllery that supported the Arab army in the second half of 1918.
