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.
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.
THIS rare and highly important 18th century diamond jewel weighing approximately 300 carats will highlight Sotheby’s Royal and Noble sale in Geneva on November 11. Though its precise origin story is not recorded, such an important and historic antique jewel could only have been created for royalty or a high-ranking aristocrat at one of the glittering courts of the ancient régime – most the French or English court. It is thought that some of the diamonds featured in this jewel may have come from the famous necklace linked to what became the scandal of the “Affair of the Necklace” which contributed to the advent of the French revolution and eventually Marie-Antoinette’s death. It has emerged from a private Asian collection and is making a first public appearance in 50 years. It belonged to the Marquesses of Anglesey, a leading Anglo-Welsh aristocratic family with close ties to the British Royal family in the early 20th century. In 1937, Marjorie Paget, Marchioness of Anglesey (eldest daughter of Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland), wore the jewel to the coronation of King George VI, together with the famous Anglesey tiara. She was immortalised wearing her coronation robes and diamond jewel by the renowned society photographer Cecil Beaton. In 1953, her daughter-in-law attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II wearing the same ensemble of heirloom jewels. The seventh Marquess of Anglesey parted with the piece around the 1960s.
The late 18th century jewel is a technically stunning piece of jewellery composed of three rows of diamonds finished with a diamond tassel at each end. Jewels of this era were characterised by their opulence and versatility of use: one piece could be worn as a necklace or sewn onto a piece of clothing as an ornament. In this case the jewel – also referred to as “négligé” – can be worn around the neck with the tassels hanging or tied in a simple knot. All diamonds are in an old mine brilliant cut, weighing between one and one and half carats each. The estimate is 1,600,000 – 2,400,000 CHF / $1,800,000 – 2,800,000.
Portrait of Marjorie Paget, Lady Anglesey, wearing the 18th century jewel and the Anglesey Tiara for the coronation of King George VI by Cecil Beaton, 1937 courtesy of Condé Nast Archive
PAIR OF TURQUOISE ‘SWEET ALHAMBRA’ EARSTUDS by VAN CLEEF & ARPELS. UPDATE: THESE MADE 2,600 AT HAMMER
Jewellery auctions are for everyone, not just the super rich. This pair of Van Cleef & Arpels turquoise Sweet Alhambra earstuds come up as lot 5 at the Fine Jewellery and Watches sale by James Adam in Dublin on September 10 with an estimate of just €700-€900. A number of lots in this sale have estimtes of under €1,000. The most expensively estimated piece is a brilliant cut diamond pendant at €40,000-€50,000.
The first major US exhibition of the work of Father Browne opens today at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at Notre Dame University in Indiana, formerly the Snite Museum. The exhibition Through the Lens of Fr. Francis Browne SJ: The Photographic Adventures of an Irish Priest will run until December 1. His work documents Ireland’s involvement in some of the most memorable events of his era.
In April 1912, Browne received a gift of a ticket for the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. He took his camera along on the journey from Southampton, England, to Cherbourg, France, then to Cobh, County Cork. Browne debarked in Ireland before the Titanic sailed to disaster in the North Atlantic. Afterwards, his photographs of the liner, her passengers, and crew appeared in newspapers and magazines worldwide. After his ordination in 1915, Browne became a chaplain in the Irish Guards. He worked in France and Flanders for the entirety of World War I, and was allowed to carry his camera with him. Often on the front lines, ministering to the wounded and the dead, he was wounded five times. After the war, the Church sent Browne to Australia to recuperate from the effects of poison gas. He photographed his travels to the other side of the world and back to Ireland. In 1925 he became Superior of Saint Francis Xavier Church in Dublin. Over the balance of his career, he traveled extensively in Ireland and England to preach at Jesuit gatherings, missions, and retreats. He also pursued his hobby of observing the rapidly changing life across Ireland.
