Victorian Irish pitch pine bar counter and back. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This rare Victorian Irish pitch pine bar counter with mirrored bar back surmounted with reverse painted glass panels and carved with shamrocks comes up at Victor Mee’s sale on July 26-27. The two day auction of pub memorabilia, collectibles and decorative advertising features 728 lots. The bar here, lot 161, is at €4,000-€8,000 one of the most expensively estimated pieces but this is a sale with something to suit all budgets. The decorative interiors sale planned by Victor Mee for this week had to be postponed until August 9 and 10 due to a case of covid.
Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, painted in 1964, made a record $195 million at Christie’s.
Global sales at Christie’s in the first half of 2022 reached $4.1 billion, made up from $3.5 billion in auction sales and $0.6 billion in private sales. This is the best performance since 2015 and even surpasses the first half year of 2018 when Christie’s sold the Rockefeller Collection. Andy Warhol’s Short Sage Blue Marilyn was the most valuable lot sold, at $195 million. There was remarkable results for major collections like those of Thomas and Doris Ammann, Anne H. Bass, Rosalind Gersten Jacobs and Melvin Jacobs and Hubert de Givenchy. The sell through rate across all auctions was 87%. A strong influx of new and younger clients was noted. In the half year so far 30% of all buyers are new to Christie’s, and 34% of these new buyers are millennials.
Philanthropic sales raised nearly $440 million with $13.7 million in aid to Ukraine. The outlook for the autumn is good, led by the Ann and Gordon Getty Collection in New York.
Bowfronted chest of drawers at Woodwards. UPDATE: THIS MADE 180 AT HAMMER
Millennials from around the globe were moved to take part in the fabulous sales of the collections of Hubert de Givenchy at Christie’s in June and there should be much to tempt our Irish millennials at Woodwards sale in Cork on July 16. It should be possible to pick up a piece of antique furniture for a song at this auction.
Estimated at just €300-€400 are a Cork bowfront sideboard, an ormolu mounted bijouterie table, a Georgian bureau bookcase, a set of six dining chairs, a mahogany pedestal office desk and an Edwardian sofa table. A Victorian round work table, a Victorian d-end dining table, a Georgian library table, a Georgian bureau and a three tier dumb waiter are on the market with estimates of just €200-€300. The catalogue is online.
Djinn lounge chair by Olivier Mourgue. UPDATE: THIS MADE 400 AT HAMMER
Anyone travelling by air this summer quickly learns one harsh truth. Those of us paying the piper do not call the tune. Which makes one lot at de Veres online art and design auction, which runs until July 12, of great if impractical interest. It won’t fit in your carry on bag but lot 16 at de Veres is this Djinn lounge chair by Olivier Mourgue for Airborne International. Just the thing when your flight has been cancelled and you have been abandoned. The estimate is just €400-€600. There are chairs by Charles and Ray Eames and Ligne Roset, Italian sofas, contemporary tables and antique desks but most of the 146 lots in this sale are artworks. All of them are at highly affordable prices as this is one of a number of sales by de Veres designed for those who are dipping their toes into the market for the first time. Among the art lots are a number of mid century set designs by Reginald Grey for theatres like The Gate, The Globe and The Pike.
Panelled hand painted and gilded gesso French chateau interior. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
In a year when so many projects are behind time and skills are hard to come by the words “hold that building job” are difficult to utter. It might be just worth the risk for lot 624 at Victor Mee’s upcoming decorative interiors, architectural and pub memorabilia sale. If your concept of Les Liasons dangereuses revolves around a risky rush of blood at the auction room and your taste runs to gilded French interiors of the 18th century then this is the lot for you.
On offer is a totally over the top richly gilded panelled room with etched glass panel doors and original fireplace from a chateau near Versailles. The estimate for the lot is €25,000-€35,000 and good luck to anyone prepared to take it on. Armed with this piece of kit any purchaser would be in a perfect position to utter the words: “welcome to my humble abode” or mutter “a mere bagatelle I picked up at a sale”. These recreations really do work. There are wonderfully atmospheric French rooms recreated from original panelling at the Metropolitan Museum in New York where you need a pinch to know that you are in the US and not in France. The illustration here includes a pair of life size stone lamp statues on marble bases. These are a separate lot numbered 715 in a brimful of interest catalogue of 1,124 lots, and the estimate is €2,750-€3,750. UPDATE: THE STONE LAMP STATUES MADE €2,800 at the sale of BG salvage in October 2023.
The stylish mantel piece (note quantity of panels reflected in the mirror).
Victor Mee is based in Co. Cavan but is an offsite online sale which is on view at Tallbridge Road, Cranagill, Co. Armagh, BT62 8NP in Northern Ireland on July 16 and 17 from 11 am to 4 pm on each day. Among the lots are doors of various types, pediments, dividers, cast iron radiators, panelling, corbels, gates, lighting, chairs, display units, clocks, mirrors, a crocodile skin, tables, prints, bar fittings, urns, cast iron models of models, a gazebo, a stone fountain and a 19th century carved oak pulpit.
UPDATE: IN OCTOBER 2023 THE PANELLED ROOM CAME UP AT A VICTOR MEE SALE OF BG SALVAGE IN NAAS AND MADE A HAMMER PRICE OF €15,000
Kieran Crowley – Here it comes. UPDATE: THIS MADE 300 AT HAMMER
Here it comes by Kieran Crowley is lot 19 at de Veres online art and design auction which runs until July 12. This is an online only affordable sale of 146 lots, ideal for those starting a collection. The oil on board illustrated here is estimated at €300-500.
19th century cheval mirror with brass candle holders
This 19th century mahogany cheval mirror is among the lots from Howth Castle at Sean Eacrett’s online sale from Ballybrittas, Co. Laois on July 9. The sale includes a number of lots from the attics and basements at Howth Castle. The mirror illustrated here, lot 295, is estimated at €300-€500. There are 720 lots in the auction, which includes contents from houses in Kildare, Dublin and Wicklow.
Irish George I walnut and featherbanded, sycamore, cedar and marquetry ‘architectural’ secretaire cabinet c1725, possibly by John Kirkhoffer. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This Irish George I walnut and featherbanded, sycamore, cedar and marquetry ‘architectural’ secretaire cabinet is one of a group of four which feature in Irish Furniture, 2007, Yale University in New Haven and London by Desmond Fitzgerald, Knight of Glin and James Peill. One of these cabinets was originally owned by Dean Swift and the example housed in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London was thought to have been his, but later analysis of an inscription on the cabinet has revealed this not to be the case. This one comes up at Bonhams sale of Decorative Arts Through the Ages in London on July 13 with an estimate of £30,000-£40,000.
John Kirkhoffer was probably the son of a German Palatine called Franz Ludwig, who arrived in Ireland as a refugee in 1709 after escaping the Rhineland-Palatinate area, which had been subjected to many years of conflict. The Kirkhoffer family of Protestant immigrants made it to Counties Kerry and Limerick before ultimately settling in Dublin.
A gilt console table and other lots from Aidan Foley’s sale
A 1940 shipwreck off Cape Clear and the Irish record for a specimen river brown trout are recalled at Aidan Foley’s two day auction at Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare on July 4 and 5. The trout, weighing 20 lbs, was caught in the River Shannon at Corbally, Limerick in February 1957 by Major Hugh L Place. The sale includes items from the Place family, who had strong connections to the Limerick Steamship Company, which named its ships after locations in Limerick.
The SS Maigue, travelling from Limerick via Fenit to Liverpool with a cargo of bacon, struck a rock near Cape Clear in January 1940 and was beached at South Harbour. Badly damaged she was refloated that May, sold for scrap and broken up in Dublin. An unsigned painting of the ship is included in the auction along with a collection of fishing rods by John Enright, Castleconnell owned by Major Place. Old fishing flies with a 1945 note by Major Place who believed them then to be 100 years old might make an interesting catch. Antique lots in the auction include two console tables, a metal Armada chest, Irish swords by Johnson of Dublin, an Adams style desk and a large club fender. The catalogue for this sale of 1,700 lots is online and the auctions will be live and online.
LÊ QU0C L0C (VIETNAM, 1918-1987) – A Mekong river landscape with a village
Described as rare and important this six fold Mekong river scene by Le Quoc Loc made a hammer price of €360,000 at the James Adam sale of Asian art in Dublin today. This screen is typical of the artist’s work, in the sense that the predominant tones are red and dark brown combined with gilt. It depicts a bird’s eye-view animated landscape, as seen from the top of a hill, crossed by Mekong river arms. The in-depth perspective is created by a succession of grounds. In the first two the artist used a gilt lacquer to depict trees, including palm trees. In the middle on the left, is a traditional thatched houses hamlet. Then come Mekong river arms. The composition may roughly be described as being divided into two parts by a diagonal going from the upper left corner to the lower right corner – thereby creating two triangular shapes – and playing with empty and full. The estimate for the screen was €200,000-€400,000.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for June 25,2022)
