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A Queen Anne inlaid walnut marquetry longcase clock made a hammer price of 5,200 at Marshs online auction in Cork today. With engraved brass and silver dial it is inscribed “John Martin Londini Fecit”. Other hammer prices include: a set of Cork 11 bar chairs (4,200); an Anglo-Indian foldover games table (1,700); a Georgian chest on chest (1,800 and a Victorian burr walnut ormolu mounted credenza (4,000).
The Westport House table (above) and the Leinster House cabinets (below) are among the highly important pieces of furniture due to come under the hammer at Christie’s in London next January 19. The Apter-Fredericks, 75 Years of Important English Furniture sale will comprise 140 lots. There are pieces by the foremost craftsmen and designers of the 18th and 19th centuries including Chippendale, Ince & Mayhew, Linnell, Gomm, Lock, Cobb, Bullock and Gillows, as well as a selection of Chinese works of art. Internationally renowned for the superlative quality, condition and provenance of their pieces, Apter-Fredericks remains an industry byword for the very finest furniture and works of art, a reputation which has been built by three generations of the family over the last 75 years.
A statement by Harry and Guy Apter reads: ‘For 75 years Apter-Fredericks have enjoyed dealing in the finest furniture, welcoming clients, old and new, to our Chelsea showroom and placing wonderful pieces in their homes, as well as occasionally in museums. After 40 years in the business, a new world and a new way of working has developed and it has become clear to us both that we no longer want or need a showroom in central London to continue to thrive and do business successfully. We see a future where we hold less stock and are able to spend more time both in the pursuit of masterpieces and visiting our clients”.
The Westport House table is estimated at £40,000-50,000, the Leinster House cabinets at £40,000-60,000.
One of the most sought after Irish football match programmes comes under the hammer at Mullens online Collectors Cabinet sale in Laurel Park, Bray on December 5. The sale was postponed in October. The programme for the Ireland v Germany match at Dalymount Park in 1936 is estimated at €600-€800. It shows the Swastika decorated Nazi German flag and the Irish tricolour. Ireland won by five goals to two. It is from the collection of Christy Rooney from The Liberties, Dublin, a lifelong Manchester United and Ireland supporter. Nearly 4,000 programmes will be offered in 64 lots with estimates from €60-€800. A 1986 facsimile of the Book of Kells is estimated at €5,000-€7,000.
Among a large selection of film posters is lot 448, the 1964 Goldfinger poster. Sadly Sean Connery, Margaret Nolan, the actress whose gold painted body featured in the film and Honor Blackman, who played Pussy Galore, all died this year.
A four panel Chinese lacquered screen with court scenes comes up at Lynes and Lynes in Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork on December 5. The online auction of 360 lots comprises two house contents including those of a downsizing couple who lived in China and Canada before retiring to west Cork. The screen, inlaid with mother of pearl and soapstone, is estimated at €600-€800. There are two stained glass panels by Desmond Kyne, one commemorating the 1979 visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland, the other titled Our Lady Queen of Ireland. Each is estimated at €300-€500. The sale features a selection of books, glass, collectibles and drawings.
Irish collectors are faced with a dizzying array of online choices in a whole series of end of year sales in the run up to Christmas. Historically rare archival items, collectibles, antique furniture, Irish glass, porcelain, jewellery, silver and art will all come under the hammer. And there will be a series of major art sales in Dublin from December 7. The Woodwards online sale in Cork on December 5 offers a good selection of antique furniture, rugs, collectibles and art. There is a set of eight Cork 11-bar chairs (€2,500-4,000); a GCeorgian secretaire (€1,000-€1,500); an Edwardian drawingroom suite (€1,000-€1,500) and a pair of Waterford Crystal chandeliers (€800-1,500).
At Sixmilebridge in Co. Clare Aidan Foley has a four day online sale with more than 2,000 lots starting on December 5 with a large collection of books, records and CD’s. This will be followed by auctions of antique furniture, mirrors, Persian rugs and art on the following three days. One of the prime lots is a large Killarney davenport with an estimate of €6,000-€8,000. The Collectors Cabinet sale by Mullens of Laurel Park, postponed from October, takes place on December 5. More than 500 lots of all sorts of everything from books and cinema posters to a facsimile of the Book of Kells, Irish Republican memorabilia and a collection of nearly 4,000 football programmes including the famous Irish v Germany games in 1936 when the Tricolour was published alongside the flag of Nazi Germany are due to come under the hammer.
In Dublin James Adam is running a timed online only At Home sale until December 2. There is silver, jewellery and watches, antique furniture, old Irish glass, art and collectibles with nearly 600 lots to chose from. More than 900 lots will come under the hammer online at a two day Christmas auction by Sean Eacrett of Ballybrittas, Co. Laois on December 5 and 6. The sale contents from an antique shop and a stamp collection.
The illuminated Hannibal Lecter mask from the film Hannibal sold for a hammer price of €85,000 at Sheppards online sale of residual contents from Castlehyde House, Fermoy. From the collection of MIchael Flatley, who is planning a refurbishment of the Co. Cork home he bought in 2001, the mask is signed by actors Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore. It was at €80,000-€100,000 the most expensively estimated lot of the sale.
On his retirement the man known globally as The Lord of the Dance took up art as an outlet for his creative force. One of his works, an acrylic on vinyl entitled The Finishing Line, made €37,000 at hammer against an estimate of €40,000-€60,000. A Maitland Smith bar sold for €8,200, a pair of large gilt bronze figures of nymphs each holding a torch made €4,600 as did a championship sized snooker table. Other hammer prices included: a black marble and ormolu Medici lion clock (€2,800); a pair of hide upholstered library settees (€3,600); a portrait of James Joyce wearing a white suit (€4,000); an extensive hunting scene (€5,200); an 18th century walnut armoire (€1,450); a pair of carved parcel gilt settees (€1,700); a pair of bronzed sculptures of centaurs (€2,200); a hide upholstered chesterfield settee (€1,400); a set of ten 19th century dining chairs (€2,800); a rococo carved giltwood coffee table €2,600); a library terrestrial globe (€2,600); a full suit of armour made €3,400 one sold for €1,700 and another for €1,100; a pair of painted Gainsborough chairs sold for €1,800. The sale of nearly 700 surplus to requirements pieces mostly collected over the past 20 years will continue today when another 236 lots will come under the hammer online at Sheppards.
An outstanding Louis XIV period cabinet by André-Charles Boulle was the top lot at Christie’s Exceptional sale in Paris with a video link with the auction room in London today. From the collection of Sadruddin Aga Khan it made €716,000. The sale realised a total of €2,842,250. Earlier today The Collector: Le Goût français auction made €1,947,625 and attracted bidders from 21 countries. A pair of Louis XV style Chinese biscuit parrots made €47,500 a top estimate of €20,000.
Farmhouse and cabin furniture from all over Ireland is highlighted in an authoritative new book by Claudia Kinmonth just published by Cork University Press. Irish Country Furniture and Furnishings 1700-2000 illuminates a way of life lived by our not so distant ancestors that has almost vanished in Ireland.Lavishly illustrated, it illuminates the furniture and furnishings of rural Ireland. A chapter on chairs and stools, for example, explains how the “creepie stool” had staked legs wedged into a thick seat. This allowed for easy replacement at a time when things we built to last for many generations. The chapter on small furnishings and utensils discusses work of crafts people like basket makers, potters, tin smiths and wood turners. From the smallest cabins to the largest farmhouses people owned and made things that reflected their needs and lifestyle, occupations and cultural history at a time when re-cycling applied to everything and many objects were re-purposed. The book costs €39.
A stunning array of Irish pictures from the 18th to the 20th centuries as well as Georgian and Regency furniture and decorative arts will come under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London on November 10. If there is a certain sense of deja vu about the auction of contents from 44 Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin it is because this sale was first scheduled to take place in London last March. The first lockdown landed and it was re-scheduled to November just in time for lockdown number two to take off. Things are different this time round, the auction world has adjusted spectacularly well to the online model and there is a zoom boom.
Irish art has fared very well in times of pandemic and this sale offers an exceptional William Scott and five works by Yeats. The paintings by Yeats include The Showground Revisited, painted in 1950 (£150,000-250,000 / €170,000-282,000) and Young Men, painted in 1929 (£150,000-250,000 / €170,000-282,000). The Scott, entitled Deep Blues, has an estimate of £300,000-500,000 / €339,000-565,000.There is art by Daniel Maclise, George Barret, Paul Henry, Roderic O’Conor, George Mullins, James Arthur O’Connor, John Butts, james Humbert Craig, Jeremiah Hoad, Louis le Brocquy, Erskine Nichol, William Sadler, William Ashford, Douglas Alexander, Nathaniel Hone, Harry Kernoff and others including a set of 25 Views of Dublin by James Malton.
These were all shown in Dublin a year ago as a curtain raiser to the November 2019 Irish art sale at Sotheby’s. Serious punters who viewed them then will have no trouble vividly remembering them now.
The elegant Dublin townhouse, home to the late property developer Paddy Kelly, was a wonderful setting for these paintings and antique furniture pieces like a pair of Irish mirrors and a pair of demi lune side cabinets in the manner of the Dublin maker William Moore. On offer too is a c1820 Irish Regency serving table, a set of four Irish hall chairs c1815 and a matched pair of table globes by Cary. A Victorian silver gilt replica of the Ardagh Chalice has an estimate of £3,000-£5,000. An avid collector, Patrick Kelly (1942-2011) recognised the tradition of Irish painting from the eighteenth century through to the twentieth, complemented with fine Georgian and Regency furniture, silver and decorative arts, amassed from auctions and dealers over three decades.
Michael Flatley’s clearout of Castlehyde near Fermoy to prepare for a refurbishment offers something for collectors across the board – even those who might be into a spot of cannibalism. Pride of place in the sale, to be held online at Sheppards in Durrow on November 26-27, is the mask worn by Anthony Hopkins when he played Hannibal Lecter, the fictional forensic psychiatrist who liked to eat his victims. Signed by Hopkins and co-star Julianne Moore it is estimated at €80,000-€120,000.
UPDATE: THE HANNIBAL LECTER MASK MADE 85,000 AT HAMMER
Not the usual stuff of country house sales, but the Lord of the Dance, who has poured millions into the restoration of the Palladian mansion on the banks of the River Blackwater, is in the realm of collectors who are more extraordinary than ordinary. He is planning a major overhaul of the interior so these pieces are surplus to requirements.More than 700 items collected during the past 20 years will come under the hammer. Period pieces include a pair of 19th century French marble console tables (€8,000-€12,000), a pair of large gilt bronze figures of nymphs each holding a torch (€5,000-€8,000), a Victorian console table and mirror (€5,000-€8,000) and a pair of Edwardian satinwood wing armchair (€1,400-€1,800). There are medieval style suits of armour (€500-€800 each) which are reproduction. So are the Graeco Roman busts displayed in the dining room (from €500-€1,200). There is a Louis XVI desk (€4,000-€6,000), a full size billiard table (€3,000-€5,000), a hide covered Chesterfield (€1,000-€1,500) and some French Rococo style sofas.When he retired from dancing Michael Flatley took to art. One of his pieces, entitled Finishing Line, is at €40,000-€60,000, the second most expensively estimated item in the auction. UPDATE: THE FINISHING LINE ARTWORK MADE 37,000 AT HAMMER
