Paula Rego, Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ (1995, estimate: £2,200,000-3,200,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE A WOLRD RECORD PRICE OF £3,065,000
Paula Rego’s 1995 work Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ (1940) will come to auction for the first time at Christie’s 20th / 21st Century evening sale in London on October 13. With an estimate of £2.2-3.2 million it is expected to set a new auction record for the artist. Executed upon two monumental panels this is the finest and most complex in this extraordinary series. Formerly part of the Saatchi Collection, Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ was created for the Hayward Gallery’s exhibition ‘Spellbound: Art and Film’ in 1996 and has been prominently exhibited over the past three decades including at Tate Liverpool (1997); The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (2007-08); Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris (2018-19) and Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (2022-23).
ANNEMARIE BOURKE (B.1957) – Lily Pond. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,100 AT HAMMER
Lily Pond by Annemarie Bourke is lot nine at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current off the wall online art auction. The oil on canvas is estimated at £800-£1,200. The catalogue for the sale, which runs September 18, is online and viewing gets underway today in Skibbereen.
THE top estimate was £600 but Freddie Mercury’s silver moustache comb sold for a whopping £152,400 at the final day of the Queen frontman’s series of online sales at Sotheby’s in London yesterday. The little comb by Tiffany and Co. ignited the public interest at the month long exhibition at Sotheby’s before the series of Freddie Mercury sales.
Pablo Picasso, Femme à la montre, 1932, oil on canvas, 51 1?4 x 38 inches. Estimate in excess of $120 million. UPDATE: THIS MADE $139 MILLION
An Era Defined is the title of the sales of the Emily Fisher Landau Collection at Sotheby’s in New York on November 8 and 9 next. The collection is synonymous with connoisseurship and quality, and also speaks to Mrs. Fisher Landau’s voracious and instinctive approach to collecting. From Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, and Fernand Léger, through to Ed Ruscha and Jasper Johns, alongside Mark Tansey and Glenn Ligon, the collection traces the greatest achievements of 20th-century art, in each case through key masterpiece examples. Following a series of international exhibition some 120 exceptional works from the collection, estimated to bring well over $400 million, will be offered for sale at Sotheby’s.
MARK TANSEY – Triumph Over Mastery II. UPDATE: THIS MADE $11.8 MILLION
Mrs. Fisher Landau’s collecting journey began in the late 1960s with the purchase of a striking Alexander Calder mobile and with a chance encounter with a poster advertising a forthcoming Josef Albers show at Pace Gallery, from which three major acquisitions followed. Mrs. Fisher Landau began to put together a major ensemble of works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Jean Arp, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Paul Klee and Louise Nevelson among others. All were complemented, in later years, by the work of artists she came to know and patronize directly, many of whom she collected in depth. Few collectors have been as committed to building relationships with artists as she: from post-war titans such as Ed Ruscha and Jasper Johns to artists at the vanguard in the 21st century, such as Glenn Ligon and Mark Tansey.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, and over the course of the next four decades, Mrs. Fisher Landau was deeply involved with the Whitney Museum in so many ways: a member of the acquisition committees, she also endowed the Museum’s famous Whitney Biennial exhibitions and in 2010 made a landmark donation of nearly 400 works, which was subsequently exhibited under the title “Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection”. The fourth floor of the Breuer building remains named in her honour.
JASPER JOHNS – Flags. UPDATE: THIS MADE $41 MILLION
Made to commemorate the Spassky-Fischer world championship this folding travelling silver chess set will feature at Timeless, the Irish Antique Dealers Fair, which takes place in Dublin’s RDS from September 15-17. Vintage Hub will feature the set, with white pieces made of solid silver and black pieces of silver gilt. All connect into a compact tube to stow away.
With a mix of antique and contemporary pieces Timeless is an opportunity for collectors of all tastes to explore and discover. This is the 56th holding of the annual Irish Antique Dealers Fair.
Vincent Van Gogh – The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring.
A Van Gogh painting stolen in 2020 from a museum in The Netherlands which had been closed due to the Covid 19 pandemic has been recovered. The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring had been in the collection of The Groninger Museum in Groningen from 1962. In 2020 was on loan to the Singer Laren Museum in Laren, south east of Amsterdam.
Dutch art detective Arthur Brand was handed the 139-year-old painting in a pillow and an Ikea bag by a man who came to his front door. “I did this in complete co-ordination with Dutch police and we knew this guy wasn’t involved in the theft,” he said. in 2021 a career art thief was jailed for eight years over the incident. The painting had already changed hands at that stage.
The French-born thief, 59-year-old Nils M, who lived a short distance away from Laren, was convicted of stealing the work as well as a Frans Hals painting a few months later from a museum in Leerdam, near Utrecht. His DNA was found at both crime scenes. Dutch police say the painting was acquired by a crime group intending to use it in exchange for shorter jail terms.
Van Gogh lived with his parents in the parsonage of the Dutch Reformed Church at Nuenen near Eindhoven in December 1883 where his father was pastor. He was there for nearly two years.
HUANGHUALI CLOTHES RACK – 17TH CENTURY. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $919,800
Fancy a clothes rack for around half a million? Christie’s has just the one – a 17th-century magnificent and extremely rare huanghuali version – at its important Chinese ceramics and works of art sale in New York on September 21-22. The estimate on this stupendous piece from an American private collection is $400,000-$600,000. The sale features outstanding works from a number of important private collections of ceramics, cloisonné, lacquer, jade, scholar’s objects, textiles, and important classical Chinese furniture.
In New York Christie’s will mark Asian Art Week with nine auctions, six live; three online. Live sales begin September 19 with Japanese and Korean Art. There will be sales of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art, The LJZ Collection of Chinese Jades; Mineo Hata: An Instinctive Eye spanning the geography of Asia; Marchant: Eight Treasures for the Wanli Emperor and Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. The online sales are The Moke Mokotoff Collection, Arts of India and Arts of Asia.
This diamond ring is at Adams next Tuesday with an estimate of €10,000-€15,000. UPDATE: THIS MADE 15,000 AT HAMMER
The James Adam catalogue contains an eye watering selection of jewellery and watches from an Art Deco diamond bracelet designed by Austrian Imperial jewellers Kochert in 1929, later re-designed as a tiara by Bulgari in Rome in the 1950’s, to necklaces, bracelets, rings, dress rings, pendants, brooches and watches by makers from Rolex to Breitling. The fine jewellery and watches sale takes place on September 12 and is now on view in Dublin. The catalogue is online.
UPDATE: The top lot of the sale was an Art Deco diamond bracelet designed by Erwin Lang. It made €95,000 at hammer.
This oil by John Frederick Herring senior will be at Conal Meyler’s stand at the National Antique Fair in Limerick today and tomorrow.
In terms of antiques, vintage and collectible items Limerick has it all this weekend. Whether you choose to walk, drive, canter or gallop to Limerick Racecourse it is the place to be for an enormous indoor gathering of the Irish antique trade.Despite the size of the facility organiser Robin O’Donnell has been forced to limit dealer attendance as he is inundated with requests from people wanting to be part of it.The racecourse has proven to be an ideal venue for Ireland’s biggest antiques, art and vintage fair, extremely popular with both dealers and the public. This is the fourth two day event to be held here by Hibernian Antique Fairs. This time around around 80 dealers will be in attendance.There will be some new faces present at a fair offering a vast range spanning everything from art and antique furniture to jewellery, sculpture, silver, vintage fashion and accessories, glass, porcelain, vintage toys, coins, banknotes, militaria and all sorts of other collectibles.Fairs are the go to place when shopping for antiques. It is very difficult to maintain an antique shop and the cost of overheads has led to closures. Retail is struggling in our era.Robin O’Donnell has been running these events since 1988. The first one was at the former Jurys Hotel on the Ennis Road. Later it moved to the former Limerick Inn also on the Ennis Road then to the South Court Hotel. There is room for expansion at Limerick Racecourse where upper floors could be made available. This is likely to be something that someone younger will have to take on. New blood is needed to sell old stuff. Robin O’Donnell reckons the time is right for a new generation to bring it to the next level.Treasures Irish Art of Athlone will be among a number of dealers showing art and sculpture, there are various antique furniture specialists and no shortage of jewellery, silver, old Irish glass, porcelain and collectibles as well as Rolex watches, vintage fashion, hats and accessories. It is a fair with something for everyone with a tremendous range of items across varying price brackets available all weekend. Opening times are from 11 am to 6 pm today and tomorrow.
Some opal rings among the baubles at Courtville Antiques
KEES VAN DONGEN – LA QUIETUDE (1918) (£3-£5 MILLION). UPDATE: THIS MADE £10,775,000
The Sam Josefowitz Collection will be offered by Christie’s in a series of sales across London, Paris and New York over the next two years. Launching in London on October 13 with Masterpieces from the Collection of Sam Josefowitz, a key element of Christie’s Frieze Week programme, the cross-category evening sale will span Antiquities to Post Impressionism, Les Nabis to Giacometti furniture. This will be followed by three sales at Christie’s Paris, coinciding with Paris + par Art Basel, comprised of an evening sale on October 20, a day sale on October 21 and an online-only sale open for bidding from October 12 to 25. Over 800 lots, with estimates ranging from £500 to £5 million, will be offered in 2023 and 2024, and are expected to realise in excess of £80 million.
AN ASSYRIAN GYPSUM RELIEF OF A WINGED GENIUS (£2.5-£4 million). UPDATE: THIS MADE £3,912,000
