More than 270 lots will come under the hammer at Hegarty’s online sale in Bandon on June 14. Antique furniture, jewellery, garden pieces, rugs and collectibles including old Irish glass will come under the hammer. There are three online platforms for this auction, Easy Live Auctions, The Saleroom and Invaluable.
Doneraile based Aidan Foley, who quickly moved to an online only model when the pandemic lockdown began in Ireland, will hold a two day sale on May 30 and 31. Around 350 lots are to come under the hammer on each day. He reports that successful online auctions make more work for the auctioneers. There is more demand for pre-sale reports and afterwards lots have to be packaged and despatched, sometimes crated. One lot from his sale at the beginning of May went to Sri Lanka and buyers and collectors registered from around the globe.
The upcoming auctions on easy live will include boxed sets of promotional discs sent to RTE’s Lorcan Murray. Items from his extensive collection of rock and pop memorabilia have already featured at several of Aidan Foley’s auctions and garnered much interest. Another upcoming lot certain to arouse great interest is a pencil sketch of a river scene by John Butler Yeats estimated at €800-1,200. It is from an artists sketch book purchased at a Yeats family dispersal auction.
We’ve all become unhappily accustomed to restrictions on our movement. One lot at Woodwards first ever online only auction in Cork on May 30 demonstrates that lockdown comes in many forms, and there is nothing new about it. People can be confined to their own property, then forced to flee in most dramatic circumstances, as happened in Cobh long ago.
Lot 285 at Woodwards is a detailed painting of The Queens Hotel, Queenstown, Ireland (now the Commodore Hotel, Cobh) by Walter Richards. It dates to the first decade of the last century. Around that time the hotel, which first opened in 1854, was taken over by Otto Humbert, a naturalised British subject of German birth. The noted hotelier had electricity and phones installed and an American style bar on the ground floor. Fast forward to May 1915. Survivors of the Lusitania were brought ashore at Cobh. Some were billeted in The Queen’s Hotel. Feelings about the killing of 1,200 civilians aboard a passenger liner torpedoed by a German U-boat ran very high. Survivors were horrified to discover the proprietor of the hotel was a German. The fact that he was blameless, that nothing against him was known, counted for nothing. A mob surrounded the hotel demanding it be burned to the ground.Otto Humbert and his family were forced to hide in the wine cellar for three days until the rioters dispersed. By then he had prudently decided to leave. He fled from his own hotel and made it to Liverpool. There he boarded a ship bound for New York, a fact reported by The New York Times on May 30, 1915. Many of those who died on the Lusitania are buried at Old Church cemetery in Cobh, just five minutes from the hotel.The sinking propelled America into the First World War and Queenstown into global war headlines. The painting depicts a much more tranquil, Edwardian style, harbour front hotel with attractive red and white awnings. It is estimated at just €400-500. A few years earlier, in 1912, some of those who set off on the Titanic spent their last night ashore at this historic hotel with its long history of servicing the liner trade.
Woodwards will offer 338 lots antique furniture, fine art, silver and collectibles in an online auction which has already aroused much interest.
A fine Cork clock from the collection of the late Garech Browne at Luggala comes up at Sotheby’s Decorative and Fine art online sale which runs to May 20. The c1780 George III mahogany and Chinoiseries carved fretwork longcase clock by James Aickin is reasonably estimated at just £800-1,200. Several other lots of Irish interest in this sale include an Irish provincial silver chalice from 1643, also from Luggala.Part of Garech Browne’s cellar is scheduled to come up at Fonsie Mealy’s next online sale at the end of June.
The onward march of the virtual world in this new era of online auctions, pent up demand and postponed sales cannot be overstated. Some of the rapid adjustments made in this time of pandemic are temporary, others will prove to be far more permanent.Just a few short months ago at the beginning of the year the idea of conducting a sale with no option to view physically would have been beyond the imaginings of many. Now they are not only commonplace, but working. At a time when traditional viewing is out of the question auctioneers are finding new and imaginative ways to sell.Take Christie’s, currently running a sale called The Collector online until June 1. This 264 lot auction with estimates from £200 to £35,000 is focused on bringing craft and design us in lockdown. To promote the auction of English and European furniture, silver, ceramics, gold boxes and works of art from the 17th to the 19th century, they have created a series of virtual viewing viewing rooms filled with the lots on offer. These virtual vignettes are designed to inspire the inner interior decorator unleashed by all this enforced time at home. Head of sale Paul Gallois commented: “During this unprecedented period in our lives, whilst a great many are spending more time than ever at home, interiors have become a major focus of comfort, familiarity and aesthetic expression.”
In Dublin Adams has re-scheduled a number of postponed sales to July and September. The Important Irish Art sale which had been scheduled for March is now to take place on September 9. The most expensively estimated lot in this sale is The Sick Bed by Yeats at 250,000-350,000.
The Mid-Century Modern sale is now scheduled for July 28. The auction will be held as a live auction with telephone, commission and internet bidding all available, but there will be no bidding in the room. There will be a timed Works on Paper auction and a timed fine wines and spirits sale on July 31. There will be an At Home sale on August 23 and the fine jewellery and watches sale will now take place on September 15.
Clonmel auctioneer Larry O’Keeffe will hold a timed auction of 200 lots of antique furniture, collectibles, jewellery and more to May 10. The catalogue is online at easyliveauction.com
Two days of sales by Doneraile based auctioneer Aidan Foley are now underway at Easy Live auctions. Books, music memorabilia and jewellery come under the hammer today. The sale tomorrow will feature rugs, furniture, collectibles, art and jewellery.
Hegarty’s, the Bandon auctioneers, had a large March auction in the pipeline when Covid-19 restrictions were introduced. They reduced the catalogue and held their first live online only sale instead. Bidders logged in from all over Ireland, the UK, across Europe and from as far away as Australia and the USA on the night. Working from home with built up catalogued stock they have since put together a small timed online auction of 159 lots of furniture, art, jewellery and collectibles, with free storage available on all items. The auction is now live on The Saleroom and it runs until April 30.
Is the future of the art and antiques market forever changed or is this just a temporary blip? The answer probably lies somewhere between each of these positions. When the pandemic lockdown was implemented it appeared everything would revert once it was lifted. Now it is apparent that this is not so. Covid-19 has not gone away. We will have to live with sensible precautions like social distancing for some time, even as the restrictions are eased.The auction houses of Ireland and everywhere else are in uncharted waters. Social distancing is not possible at busy viewings as we knew them, nor in crowded auction rooms. New ways to keep the business afloat must be found. Technology is an obvious answer but it is not for everyone or everything. Early indications from online sales around the world are that millennials are happier to buy online than the older billionaires who populate the global contemporary art market. Whether auction houses are prepared to sell big ticket items online is as yet far from clear. The number of private sales has been growing in latter years.
Christie’s and Phillips have consolidated their Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art sales into one 20th century week in New York – to include the London sales – scheduled at this stage for the end of June. Sotheby’s has yet to announce what is to become of its contemporary marquee sale scheduled for May 13 in New York. This sale was to be anchored by Francis Bacon’s Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus with an estimate of at least $60 million. Sotheby’s has announced that the week long Spring Hong Kong series will now take place from July 5-11 in Hong Kong. The auctions cover Chinese ceramics and paintings, modern and contemporary art, jewellery, watches and wine.
Meantime the full online sales programme by the biggest auction houses is drawing enthusiastic participation from collectors. These sales have been expanded significantly across numerous categories.
