Mary Palmer, Marchioness of Thomond, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. Portrait of Edward, 1st Lord Eliot (1727-1804). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
A portrait by Mary Palmer (1750-1820), wife of Murrough O’Brien, Marchioness of Thomond and niece of Sir Joshua Reynolds, comes up at Sotheby’s annual Royal and Noble auction online until January 18. Her portrait of the activist, abolitionist and reformer Edward James Eliot, 1st Lord Eliot, MP and Treasury minister during the government of Pitt the Younger, is an almost direct copy of Reynold’s original from 1781. No signed work by Mary Palmer is known but Sotheby’s say the inscription on the back would appear to securely identify this one as by her hand. Mary married the fifth Earl of Inchiquin in 1792. They were created Marquis and Marchioness of Thomond in 1800 as a result of their support for the Act of Union. Mary was chief beneficiary of Sir Joshua’s will, receiving nearly £100,000 and his art collection. The portrait is estimated at £7,000-£10,000 (€7,914-€11,305).
MARKEY ROBINSON (1918-1999) – By a Silver Lake (800-1,200). UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,500 AT HAMMER
The enduring appeal of Markey Robinson will face its first test at auction in 2023 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current off the wall online art sale. A gouache on board entitled By a Silver Lake comes up as lot 43 in the sale, which begins to close from 6.30 pm on January 9. A total of 455 lots will come under the hammer and the catalogue is online.
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) – Girl with a Pearl Earring 1664-67, Mauritshuis, The Hague
This is the year for Vermeer. Excitement is building in advance of the opening on February 10 of the Rijksmuseum exhibition in Amsterdam which has been bolstered by loans from the US, Europe and Japan to become the largest Vermeer show ever. At least 27 out of his very small oeuvre of around three dozen paintings loaned from the most prestigious museums in the world will be on display. Among the highlights is Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid c1670 from the collection of Ireland’s National Gallery. In an extraordinary gesture the Frick Collection in New York has lent all three of its Vermeer masterpieces, The Girl Interrupted at Her Music, Officer and Laughing Girl and Mistress and Maid.
Highlights include The Girl with a Pearl Earring from the Mauritshuis in The Hague, The Geographer from the Stadel Museum, Frankfurt and Woman Holding a Balance from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Another Vermeer from the Washington museum, Girl with a Flute, is the source of the sort of gleeful controversy that always dogs the art world. The National Gallery of Art in Washington announced recently that after long and careful scientific study it had decided that this painting was not by Vermeer and most likely by a pupil or apprentice.The director of the Rijksmuseum Taco Dibbits said that their view is more inclusive and they had decided the work should be in the show. Dibbits said there were questions about the authenticity of other works too and that their analysis showed that Vermeer was an artist who experimented and took different artistic routes.
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) – The Geographer, Stadel Museum, Frankfurt.
Last year the Rijksmuseum announced that advanced scientific studies into one of its own Vermeers, The Milkmaid, yielded several startling discoveries. Two objects in the world famous canvas, a jug holder and a fire basket, had been painted over by the artist. Analysis revealed an underpainting and offered insights into the processes of Johannes Vermeer as he sought to capture the tranquility for which his work is famous. This is the first time that the Rijksmuseum, the National Museum of The Netherlands, has dedicated a retrospective to the 17th century master. It will run until June 4.
This pair of mahogany baronial armchairs on hairy paw feet with tapestry based on The Lady and the Unicorn at the Musee de Cluny in Paris made €4,200 at hammer at Sheppards
CAN 2023 keep up with 2022. That is the burning question facing the market as Christmas has drawn to a close. If 2023 can live up to 2022 in the world of art, antiques and collectibles everyone in the business will be more than happy. In Ireland art and collectibles made strong and steady gains, exactly the sort of progress minus the madness that market insiders like to see. Rare antique furniture was sought after, day to day antique furniture, though attractive, continued to languish in the doldrums.
On the international scene art was hot, hot, hot. Records tumbled all over the place in what turned out to be a year for superlatives. In November the collection of Microsoft founder Paul G Allen at Christie’s broke all records and made more than $1.6 billion, turning into the most valuable private collection of all time. In May Christie’s sold Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn for ¢195 million, the most expensive 20th century artwork ever sold. These auctions lead a long list of sales where many new artists records were established and diminished expectations fuelled by war and financial uncertainty were ridiculously confounded.Another plus was the growing post covid normalisation.
Events like major international and local fairs, shut down in 2020 and 2021, gradually got going again. One significant pandemic plus noted across the board is a whole new wave of tech savvy buyers unafraid of the internet and happy to buy unseen. Many major international sales reported waves of new and young buyers previously unknown to the auction houses.
It was a good year for rare collectibles like this 1936 All-Ireland Hurling Final programme which made €6,500 at hammer at Fonsie Mealy
A rare example of Irish recusant silver, a silver and partially gilt chalice dating to 1636, made £10,080 (€11,670) over a top estimate of £3,000 (€3,473) at Sotheby’s in London last month. Recusancy was the state of loyal catholics who refused to attend Protestant church services after the Reformation. Measuring just eight inches in height it is inscribed in latin with the words: Orate anima moriarti heverin sacerdotis qui me fieri fecit anno domini 1636 (Pray for the soul of Moriarty Heverin, priest, who had me made, year of Our Lord, 1636). It was originally at the chapel of the now destroyed Ballynastragh House, Gorey, Co. Wexford.
This prehistoric pair of fossilised Irish elk antlers comes up at Sotheby’s online sale Emma Hawkins: A Natural World which runs from January 9-19. A pioneering collector and dealer, Emma’s interests range from the extinct to the newly formed, with the natural world an ever-present muse. The auction is drawn from the interiors of townhouses in Edinburgh and London.
‘Irish Elk’ or Giant Deer (Megaloceras Giganteus) originated during the Pleistocene Period of the Great Ice Age and is thought to have initially colonised Siberia before migrating towards the west in response to the deteriorating climate, becoming extinct approximately 11,000 years ago. Although the Elk inhabited a vast expanse of central Europe and Asia, the largest concentration of its remains have been found mainly in the marl underlying bogland of Ireland. The estimate is £20,000-£30,000.
William Crozier HRHA (1930-2011) – Sunset, West Cork (1990). UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,600 AT HAMMER
This west Cork watercolour by William Crozier kicks off Morgan O’Driscoll’s current Off the Wall online art auction which runs until January 9. Signed and dated 1990 it is estimated at 1,500-2,500. The catalogue is online and the auction will be on view in Skibbereen on January 5, 6 and 9.
JMW Turner (1775-1851) The Golden Bough, exhibited 1834. Courtesy Tate Gallery
THE 121st annual Turner exhibition which opens on New Year’s Day today at the National Gallery of Ireland wlll be the most exciting yet. It coincides with the magnificent exhibition Turner: The Sun is God which continues at the Gallery until February 6. Right now the National Gallery of Ireland is offering a visual feast of wonderful work by a rare master who was far ahead of his time. Turner’s art is as contemporary today as when it was painted a couple of centuries ago. An Impressionist 50 years before Impressionism, an abstract artist when abstraction was unknown, Turner as artist and innovator was far ahead of his time. It is always instructive when assessing any art to refer back to the greatest artists by visiting galleries. They set the benchmark. They did it right. Their work shouts it out when lesser artworks fall short. Brutal and frustrating as this may be for artists, it is always an important learning oppprtunity. Ask Jackson Pollock, the great mid 20th century American artist who once said memorably: “F… Picasso”.
JMW Turner, The Schollenen Gorge from the Devil’s Bridge Pass of St. Gotthard 1802. Courtesy Tate Gallery
In the world of art everyone, including collectors, needs to keep their eye in. Don’t miss these shows. An appreciation of the fact that great art isn’t easy is an important first step. The Sun is God at the National Gallery is a show to be savoured slowly. Turner draws the viewer in as he reveals his fascination with the forces of nature, the sun, moon and clouds. This glowing show traces the development of his compositions from early sketches and exploratory ‘colour beginnings’ to finished watercolours, oil paintings and published prints. It covers a range of themes including memory, imagination, nature, light and atmosphere. This unique opportunity to see 89 artworks from the Tate Collection in London never before displayed in Ireland coincides this January with the annual display of Turner watercolours bequeathed in 1900 by the English collector Henry Vaughan. This year’s selection will include the 31 Vaughan Bequest works, and five additional Turner watercolours, alongside eight of the artist’s much-loved Liber Studiorum prints of landscape and seascape compositions recreated as prints.There is much to celebrate. Turner has always been popular in Ireland. The annual watercolour show had to be cancelled two years ago for the first time in 120 years because of the pandemic. The show last January was the 120th instead of the 121st. This year, uniquely, we will get to see Turner twice.
This Georgian mahogany card table sold for €100 at Woodwards
It has been a very good year in 2022 for the art and collectibles market in Ireland. Generally prices were strong and the auction houses had a busy time. Yet it is abundantly clear that one particular New Year Resolution for 2023 – to buy antique furniture – would be highly rewarding. No matter what the future holds for us there is enormous value to be had right now. In this furniture buyers market a few examples from Cork city sales earlier this month – a situation repeated up and down the country – make the point. At Marshs a Victorian toilet mirror on barley twist uprights sold for €50 at hammer, a pair of Georgian brass firedogs made €30, an Irish Georgian side table on pad feet made €190, an Edwardian two tier centre table made €45, a Victorian hall table on turned legs made €60 and an inlaid Edwardian centre table made €50. At Woodwards a pair of Edwardian wine tables made €20, a carved ships wheel with brass mounts made €90, a Georgian bureau bookcase made €130, an Edwardian Pembroke table made €25, a serpentine fronted hall table with shaped drawer made €100 as did a Georgian mahogany card table, a circular Victorian occasional table made €40 and a Victorian two tier sewing table made €70. Not everything was at a giveaway price and many other lots made more. Nevertheless there are rich pickings for those of us who love old furniture.
That was the year that was. With more than €16 billion worth of sales at the worlds three biggest auction houses – Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips – 2022 broke all sorts of records. Consolidated sales at Sotheby’s are projected to reach $8 billion, the highest in its 278 year history. One single owner sale at Christie’s made $1.5 billion and millions of people all around the world tuned in to livestreamed auctions to see paintings like Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn sell for $195 million at Christie’s in May to become the most expensive 20th Century artwork ever sold at auction. The market was driven by fresh to market single owner collections like that of Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen whose collection – not yet entirely sold – has already made $1.5 billion. Phillips’s total sales reached $1.3 billion. Its highest-valued lot was an untitled painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat of a horned devil which sold in New York for $85 million in November.
It is an exciting time for the market as the year turns. The burning question is: What will 2023 bring?
