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JEWELLERY GROUP LOT. UPDATE: THIS LOT MADE 1,000 AT HAMMER
This group is lot 33 at Adams Jewellery Box timed online sale which runs until March 11. It comprises an 18 ct gold ring, a smokey quartz fob seal pendant, a 9 ct gold Claddagh ring, a gold bracelet, a shell cameo bracelet, a gold ring, an emerald and diamond ring, a swivel fob pendant and a nine carat gold chain. The estimate is €700-900. The auction is on view in Dublin from today and the catalogue is online.
Aidan Foley will offer this Bentley at Ashford auction. UPDATE: THIS MADE 26,000 AT HAMMER
Not every kitchen clear out yields a Bentley, the bronze front doors once at Harrods and lithographs by Miro, Picasso and Dali. But Ashford Castle is not your average kitchen and all these lots will be included in Aidan Foley’s online auction of contents from the kitchens and lodge there on January 20 and 21.
The luxury hotel is carrying out a refit. Among masses of catering equipment and rare once off collectibles is a pair of plate glass doors in their bronze surround originally at Harrods. The large doors were acquired for Ashford Castle as part of a scheme that was never realised. Each one is a single plain glass panel.
The Bentley is estimated at €10,000-€20,000 and there is significant interest in it already. There is a Porsche too. A selection of around 50 lithographs by Miro, Picasso and Dali will whet the appetites of collectors. Around 700 lots will come under the hammer. The catalogue is online and the auction is on view for three days from January 17 in Cong, Co. Mayo at the Old Mill just outside the back gate of the castle.
A Miro woodcut from Ashford Castle. UPDATE: THIS MADE 220 AT HAMMER
The Joachim-Ma Stradivarius. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $11,250,000
The Joachin-Ma Stradivarius, one of the world’s finest violins, will come up at Sotheby’s in New York next February with an estimate of $12 million – $18 million (€11.34 million – €17 million). Crafted in 1714 by Antonio Stradivari during his renowned “Golden Period” it is being offered by the New England Conservatory with all proceeds dedicated to student scholarships. Before it was gifted to NEC it belonged to the late Si-Hon Ma, a violinist and pedagogue who graduated from NEC in the 1950s. It was given to the school with the provision that it could one day be sold to provide student scholarships. Before Ma, the violin was owned by Joseph Joachim whose collaborations with composers like Johannes Brahms shaped the course of classical music. It is likely that this violin premiered the Brahms Violin Concerto in 1879 asJoachim was one of the most influential violinists of the 19th century. What sets the Joachim-Ma Stradivarius apart according to Sotheby’s is its exceptional sound—rich, complex, and full of depth. The tone is both sweet and rounded.
The Madonna and Child, from the Book of Kells, at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, c800
This earliest western illustration of the Madonna and Child from the Book of Kells dates to around 800 AD. Regarded as a masterwork of western calligraphy the illustrated manuscript of the four gospels was created in a Columban monastery and takes its name from the Abbey at Kells, Co. Meath which was its home for centuries. The Book of Kells represents insular art at its high point. The term derives from the Latin insula meaning island and relates to a time when Ireland and Britain shared a common style different from the rest of Europe. A very Happy Christmas from antiquesandartireland.com
FRIDAY FARE BY NANO REID SOLD FOR £57,600 AT SOTHEBYS MODERN BRITISH AND IRISH SALE IN LONDON IN NOVEMBER
Sotheby’s is to close its Irish office at the end of February as part of an international cost cutting exercise. The company plans to continue to serve its Irish clients in ways that are as yet unannounced. The Irish office opened first in 1978 and Arabella Bishop has been Irish Director for the past 25 years.
Trade restrictions that followed Britain’s departure from the EU created extra expense and red tape for the London auctioneers when it came to sourcing works here for sale in London. Sotheby’s is suffering internationally from a decline in auction sales, about 70 staff in London have recently been let go, offices in Moscow and Bangkok have been closed and presence in other cities has been reduced. Layoffs globally account for about six per cent of the workforce. Sotheby’s has faced increasing competition from online platforms and niche marketplaces that cater to a new generation of collectors. This cost-cutting follows the taking of a minority stake in the company, owned by French Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi, by an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, in a deal valued at $1bn.
A ruby and diamond bracelet
Fresh from the success of a Fine Jewellery sale earlier this month where the top lot, a Bulgari ruby and diamond dress ring, made €40,000, double the top estimate, the Adams jewellery box online only sale runs until December 17. The catalogue features 370 lots. A group of three enamel brooches each designed as a bow, an emerald and diamond torque necklace, a ruby and diamond bracelet and a gold and diamond brooch designed as a ballerina are all included.
UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD. The top lot was a synthetic sapphire and diamond bracelet which made €7,500 at hammer.
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) – HORSEMEN (1947). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD AT THE AUCTION AND CHANGED HANDS LATER FOR A HAMMER PRICE OF €400,000
Viewing gets underway at Adams in Dublin today for four upcoming sales, Fine Jewellery (December 3), Important Irish Art (December 4), Fine Watches (December 5) and Fine Wines and Spirits on December 6. The art sale includes outstanding paintings by Jack B. Yeats from the collection of Vincent and Jacqueline O’Brien, and works from the Hon. Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. Collection and is headed by Horsemen by Yeats with an estimate of €500,000-800,000.
A major European criminal network forging and selling artworks by some of the biggest names in modern art including works attributed to Banksy, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso has been broken up by police in Italy. Six forgery workshops were uncovered – two in Tuscany, one in Venice as well as in Spain and in Belgium – and 38 people were arrested.
Those arrested face charges of conspiracy to handle stolen goods, forgery and illegal sale of artworks, the Carabinieri cultural squad and the Pisa prosecutors’ office said in a joint statement on Monday. Authorities were tipped off in 2023 after they seized about 200 fake pieces from the collection of a businessman in Pisa, including a copy of a drawing by Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani. Other artists impersonated included Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Henry Moore, Gustav Klimt, Joan Mirò, Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon and Piet Mondrian. More than 2,100 forged artworks were recovered with a potential sale value of about €200 million.
RORY GALLAGHER’S 1961 FENDER STRATOCASTER SOLD FOR £700,000
After just seven bids Rory Gallagher’s legendary 1961 Fender Stratocaster electric guitar sold for £700,000 (£889,400 with fees) at Bonhams in London this afternoon. Estimated at £700,000-£1 million it was secured by the National Museum of Ireland and is coming home. It was bought by Live Nation Gaiety Ltd with a view to donation to the National Museum of Ireland under Section 1003 of the Taxes Consolidation Act, 1997. Promoter Denis Desmond of Live Nation Gaiety, a joint venture with Live Nation, said the guitar made in Fullerton, California and purchased by Rory from Crowley’s Music Shop in Cork in 1963, will end up in Cork.
Bidding opened at £450,000 and quickly reached £650,000. After the next telephone bid there was a long pause, no more bidders emerged and the guitar was sold. Many lots in the auction of the Rory Gallagher Collection were hotly contested and went way above estimate after bidding battles on the internet, phone and in the room. The 1958 Fender electric guitar known as Rory’s back up Strat made £127,400. A Martin D-35 flat top acoustic guitar from 1968 made £102,000, a National Trifolian resonator guitar 1930 made £95,650, a Fender Esquire election guitar 1959 made £96,950, a Fender telecaster electric guitar made £82,950, a Martin mandolin 1942 made £51,200 and a green flight case made £14,080. The sale made a total of £2.3 million.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for October 5 and July 9, 2024)
After more than 100 years hidden in the icy waters of Antarctica, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance has been revealed in extraordinary 3D detail. The vessel, which sank in 1915, lies 3,000m down at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. A digital scan made from 25,000 high resolution images was captured when the ship was found in 2022. The model reveals how the ship was crushed by the ice – the masts toppled and parts of the deck in tatters – but the structure itself is largely intact. Pictured here is a flare gun that’s referenced in the journals the crew kept. and fired by Frank Hurley, the expedition’s photographer, as the ship that had been the crew’s home was lost to the ice.
The Irish explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton led the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expeditn, which set out to make the first land crossing of Antarctica. The mission was doomed when their ship Endurance became stuck in pack ice within weeks of setting off from South Georgia. Shackleton and his men were forced to travel for hundreds of miles over ice, land and sea to reach safety – miraculously all 27 of the crew survived. A documentary on The Endurance will premiere at the London Film Festival on October 12. It will be released in cinemas on October 14.
