The Ivy Bench by Sasha Sykes at de Veres. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,800 AT HAMMER
The sale of classic 20th century design furniture and Irish art at de Veres in Dublin on October 24 offers some cutting edge Irish design alongside a selection of major international designers like Mies van der Rohe, Ingmar Relling, Marceel Breuer, Charles and Ray Eames, Rolf Benz and Ligne Roset. The Ivy Bench by Irish sculptural furniture maker Sasha Sykes is an acrylic and resin piece from an artist who explores the material language of the natural world and is influenced by the Irish landscape. The most expensively estimated lot, at 70,000-100,000, is a west of Ireland painting by Paul Henry of the Maam Valley.
Portrait of Kathleen Behan by Sarah Henrietta Purser (1848-1943), Courtesy National Gallery of Ireland
Sarah Purser: Private Worlds opens today at the National Gallery of Ireland. The exhibition explores the private worlds of her female sitters. There are two portraits of Kathleen Behan (nee Kearney and mother of Brendan) who was one of her favourite sitters. A highlly accomplished portraitist these pensive, introspective works capture the character of her sitters without leaning into sentimentality. Purser was, in 1924, the first women member elected to the RHA and a founding member of the Friends of the National Collections, Ireland. The exhibition continues until February 25
Titania and Bottom, a 1922 stained glass panel by Harry Clarke. UPDATE: THIS MADE 160,000 AT HAMMER
Harry Clarke, Paul Henry, Sir John Lavery and Sean Scully are among the leading Irish artists heading up Morgan O’Driscoll’s online art auction which gets underway on the evening of October 24. Major art of this calibre by established artists does not come cheap and estimates for these four range from €50,000 to €150,000. Any one of them would enormously enhance a serious collection of Irish art.
Secret Garden, Ballinaboy by Kenneth Webb. UPDATE: THIS MADE 19,000 AT HAMMER
In a dazzling and vivid stained glass panel Clarke delves into a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring Titania and Bottom dated 1922. In a walnut and tortoiseshell cabinet by James Hicks it recreates a strange and marvellous world composed of fragments of transformed reality. Once in the collection of Ann and Gordon Getty, which realised more than $150 million (€143 million) across ten auctions at Christie’s last year, it is estimated at €100,000-€150,000.
There is a similar estimate on Paul Henry’s atmospheric Cottages on Achill Sound which depicts three traditional thatched cottages in a path leading towards the seashore. Most of Henry’s work around Connemara and Mayo includes mountains. in this one the artist has turned away from the land and faces towards the ocean. The Beach, Evening Tangier by Sir John Lavery dates to 1920 and is estimated at €80,000-€120,000. Scully’s Barcelona dates to 1998. The estimate for this watercolour on paper is €50,000-€70,000. These are atmospheric works with their own aura. So is Three Figures by Dan O’Neill, an evocative moonlit scene with three women, their heads covered by scarves, and estimated at €25,000-€35,000. Moonlight features in Connemara by George Campbell, a nightime view, and in Full by Elizabeth Magill.
Studio Table by William Crozier. UPDATE: THIS MADE 14,000 AT HAMMER
In sharp contrast is Studio Table by William Crozier, bright with the artist’s palette of colours, and Harry Kernoff’s Madonna with Faun and Doves, inspired by religious icons. Louis le Brocquy, Jack B Yeats, Evie Hone, Peter Curling, Pauline Bewick, Letitia M Hamilton, Kenneth Webb, John Shinnors and Colin Middleton are among the artists featured in an online catalogue that is brimful of interest. The sale is on view at the RDS today, tomorrow and Monday and gets underway online at 6.30 pm next Tuesday.
Stacking the Turf by Desmond Kinney. UPDATE: THIS MADE 680 AT HAMMER
Affordable art will come under the hammer at Whyte’s online autumn Irish art auction which closes on Monday October 23. This sale offers an array of accessible art from Ireland and around the world. The highest estimated lot, at €2,500-€3,500, is a set of eight Spanish scenes by John Frederick Lewis (1804-1876) in pencil heightened with white. There is art in a range of styles and tastes by artists from Mildred Anne Butler and Jeanne Rynhart to Andy Warhol and Sir William Orpen. Lithographic prints by Paul Henry, a selection by Markey Robinson and artists like Patsy Dan Rodgers, Mark O’Neill, Geraldine O’Brien, Victor Richardson, Liam Treacy, Moyra Barry, Henry Healy, James English and Sir William Orpen make for an interesting catalogue. The sale is on view this afternoon at Whyte’s in Dublin and the catalogue is online.
JAMES ENGLISH RHA (B.1946) – COMPOSITION WITH BUTTERCUPS, 2004 UPDATE: THIS MADE 700 AT HAMMER
Francois Xavier-Lalanne (1927-2008) – Rhinocrétaire I sold for €18,335,000
Francois Xavier-Lalanne’s unique 1964 piece Rhinocrétaire I made €18,335,000 at a dedicated stand alone single lot auction at Christie’s in Paris today. This is a new world record for Lalanne. His first major sculpture had been estimated at €4-€6 million. Rhinocrétaire I first appeared at Jeanine Restany’s trailblazing Galerie J in the artist’s debut joint exhibition with his wife Claude Lalanne. A functional, metamorphic work, Rhinocrétaire I is at once a bar, an illuminated writing desk, and a seminal early sculpture that foreshadows the poetic exuberance and preternatural inventions that defined the artist’s work for the next forty-four years. Exhibited only one other time, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 2010, Rhinocrétaire I has remained in the private collection of the same French family since the 1964 Galerie J. exhibition.
A 1915 gold award medal from Trinity College, Dublin presented to pioneering biochemist William Robert Fearon (1892-1959) made a hammer price of £6,500 at Noonans sale of Historical Medals in London this week. The top lot of the auction, from an Irish collector, had been estimated at £2,400-3,000. It attracted interest from all over the world and was purchased by a collector in the Far East. The medal achieved a record price for any medal from Trinity College Dublin.
William Robert Fearon (1892-1959), pioneer biochemist was educated at St Andrew’s College, Dublin between 1908-11, followed by Trinity College between 1911-17, where he received a BA in natural science and was awarded the gold medal, a Harvey research prize from the Royal College of Physicians, Dublin in 1918, and the Carmichael prize from the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin. He went on to work as a researcher for the British food ministry and the food investigations board between 1917-19. He was a Mackinnon research student of the Royal Society at Emmanuel College, Cambridge from 1919-21 and was elected fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 1921. The chair of biochemistry at Trinity was founded for him in 1943 and he represented the Dublin University constituency in Seanad Éireann from 1943 until 1959, sitting on many government committees.
A PAIR OF LATE LOUIS XV GILTWOOD AND WHITE-PAINTED FAUTEUILS – Price Realized: $6,221,000 Louis Delanois, Joseph-Nicolas Guichard, Jean-Baptiste Cagny, supplied to Madame Du Barry for Château De Louveciennes, Circa 1770-1771
The landmark Rothschild auction series at Christie’s in New York totalled $62,656,516. There was strong demand for decorative arts of all categories and price levels, and underscoring the enduring power of the Rothschild provenance on both sides of the Atlantic. The four sales averaged 280 percent sold hammer above low estimate, and 98 percent sold by lot. Millennial buyers accounted for an average of 15 percent of bidders and buyers across the week, and bidders and buyers from 40 nations participated. Christie’s broke the record for European 18th century seat furniture and then broke that record in the very same sale. Records were also set for Hispano-Moresque and Bernard Palissy earthenware as well as for 17th century flatware.
The series began with a sale of masterpieces. The leading lot was Gerrit Dou’s A young woman holding a hare with a boy at the window which made $7 million. A pair of late Louis XV gilt walnut fauteuils a la reine by the 18th-century French furniture maker Louis Delanoisset the record for 18th century European chairs making $4,406,00, and then shortly after that this record was broken again by a Delanois pair of late Louis XV giltwood and white-painted fauteuils, supplied to Madame Du Barry for her Château De Louveciennes, Circa 1770-1771, which made $6,221,000, the second-highest price ever for European chairs of any era.
George II Irish silver strainer, Dublin, 1727. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This early Irish silver tea strainer comes up at Sotheby’s online sale of the Edith and Stuary Cary Welch collection which opens today and runs until October 27. There is no makers mark on the 1727 piece and the two handles are engraved with a crest. The estimate is £1,500-2,500.
This 2004 work by Cy Twombly comes up as a highlight at Christie’s 21st century evening sale in New York on November 7. The work comes from the artist’s celebrated Bacchus series which stands as a culmination of Twombly’s fifty years of painterly practice. The iconic looping theme had been integral to his body of work since the meandering scrawl of his 1960s Blackboard paintings. The character of Bacchus (or Dionysus in Greek), god of revelry and wine, is a notable presence, employed repeatedly throughout Twombly’s career. The character is first referenced in his 1975 collage Dionysus, then again in a 1977 series on the theme of Bacchanalia, and once more in a 1981 triptych Bacchus.
The 2003 – 2008 Bacchus series is broken into three distinct sets. Untitled (Bacchus 1st Version II) comes from the first and is one of six portrait-format paintings Twombly completed in 2004, not exhibited until 2008 at the Red October Chocolate Factory in Moscow. This set includes the only works with text. Four, including the present example, are inscribed with ‘Psilax’ translating to “the Giver of Wings” a surname attributed to Dionysus. This work is estimated at $18. – $25 million.
Sixteen Jackies by Andy Warhol will be featured as a leading highlight at Christie’s 20th Century evening sale inn New York on November 9. This 1964 painting depicts a 4×4 grid of a repeated press image of First Lady Jackie Kennedy taken during her husband’s funeral procession. The work will come to auction a week and a half shy of the day marking the 60th year anniversary of JFK’s death. A seminal work by the 20th century icon, Sixteen Jackies sits at the pinnacle of the group of artworks that became known as his Death and Disaster paintings. It is estimated at $25 million – $35 million.
