 |
 |
This highly detailed pastel on paper by Victor Richardson comes up as lot 41 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall online art auction which runs until November 7. Eucalyptus Tree, Fota is estimated at 1,000-1,500. The catalogue for the sale, which features a diverse range of works from a variety of artists including Arthur Maderson, Robert Ballagh, Cecil Maguire, Pauline Bewick, Steve Burgess, Nano Reid, Graham Knuttel, Elizabeth Brophy and John Morris, is online.
This continental specimen table comes up as lot 356 at Mullen’s timed Classic and Contemporary Interiors sale which runs until November 6. The top is inlaid with Breccia, Verona, Lapis-Lazuli, Malachite, Blue John various other examples above a concave spreading column on a platform base. The estimate is 4,000-6,000. The catalogue for the sale of 833 lots is online and it will start to finish from 6 pm.
Highlights from the collection of Microsoft founder Paul G Allen will be part of an unprecedented $1 billion sale at two auctions at Christie’s in New York next week. The auctions on November 9 and 10 will include examples, often among the finest in private hands, by Jan Brueghel the Younger, J.M.W. Turner, Edouard Manet, Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and many others in more than 150 masterworks. All of the estate’s proceeds from this historic sale will be dedicated to philanthropy, pursuant to Mr. Allen’s wishes.
Max Carter, Vice Chairman, 20th and 21st Century Art, Americas, remarked: “The Paul G. Allen Collection, like Cézanne’s breathtaking view of Mont Sainte-Victoire, is the summit of the mountain. From Brueghel’s Five Senses and the Venetian imaginings of Turner and Manet, to late 19th-century masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Monet, Klimt’s Birch Forest and Freud’s Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau), arguably the greatest set piece of the last fifty years, the Collection is bounded only by vision and quality. And then there is Seurat’s Les Poseuses. Formerly in the collections of Alphonse Kann, John Quinn and Henry McIlhenny and featured in the 1913 Armory Show, when it appeared at auction for the one and only time in 1970, the art historian John Russell suggested that it was one of the three or four most beautiful works of art to be sold since the war. It remains so today.”
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for August 26, 2022)
Village by the Marsh by Paul Henry made a hammer price of 210,000 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International art online sale this evening. The oil on canvas, measuring 18.1 inches x 22.1 inches, had been estimated at 200,000-300,000. Through the Woods to the Sea by Jack B. Yeats made a hammer price of 115,000 over a top estimate of 70,000 and My River by Yeats made 80,000 at hammer, which was the top estimate.
Among the other hammer prices were: Composition by Mainie Jellett (46,000); The Tain, Deer Among Dolmens by Louis le Brocquy (38,000); Atlantic Famine Ship by John Behan (36,000); Blue and Brown Still Life with Knife by William Scott (34,000); Glendalough by Sir John Lavery (34,000); Seascape, Large Frigate off Haulbowline, Cork Harbour by George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson (32,000); The Big Tree, Bantry Bay by Letitia M Hamilton (23,000); Composition by Mainie Jellett (25,000); Circus goes to the Island by John Shinnors (20,000); Leaving for Achill by William Henry Bartlett (18,000); Jessie’s Hearted Scarecrow and Moon by John Shinnors (18,000); Achill Sound by Markey Robinson (18,000); Under Lismore Bridge by Arthur Maderson (14,000), Exercising on a Cloudy Morning by Peter Curling (11,500); Sleep by Christopher le Brun (11,000) and Swollen Water by Hughie O’Donoghue (10,500).
Never mind phoning home, now you can bring E.T. home if you have the bucks. The Extra Terrestrial Hero “#1” Mechatronic filming model “actor” that brought the eponymous character to life in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 classic comes up at Julien’s Icons and Idols sale in Hollywood on December 16 and 17. The estimate is $1 million – $2 million. Pre-dating modern CGI technology and effects, this one-of-a-kind cinematographic relic (constructed in 1981) features 85 points of movement and is regarded as an engineering masterpiece. It was created by “The Father of E.T.,” Carlo Rambaldi, an Italian special effects master, designer and mechatronics expert best known for his work on King Kong (Paramount Pictures, 1976), Alien (20th Century Fox, 1979), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Columbia Pictures, 1977), Dune (Universal Pictures/DDL Corp. 1984), and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
There are dresses worn by Marilyn Monroe, an original staff carried by Charlton Heston as Moses in the 1956 epic The Ten Commandments, an original Nimbus 2000 broom used by actor Daniel Radcliffe from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, two duelling light sabres from Star Wars, Daniel Crag’s bathing suit from Skyfall and wardrobe pieces from the lives and careers of Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minelli, Phyllis Diller, Jane Russell, Greta Garbo, Bette Midler and Olivia Newton-John.
One of only two known copies of the official edition of the US Constitution in private hands – the First Printing of the Final Text of the Constitution – will come to auction at Sotheby’s in New York on December 13. One of just 13 copies known to exist, The Adrian Van Sinderen Constitution Is estimated at $20/30 million. This follows the historic November 2021 sale at Sotheby’s of the Goldman Constitution, the other privately owned copy, which made $43.2 million and established a new record for any book, manuscript, or printed text sold at auction.
It last appeared at auction in Philadelphia in 1894, as part of the legendary collection of Charles Colcock Jones, a Georgia lawyer, politician, and amateur historian. The Constitution was acquired as a gift for the young Adrian Van Sinderen (1887-1963) and spurred his early interest in American history and book collecting. Van Sinderen later received encouragement from from his wife’s uncle, William Augustus White, one of the titans of American bibliophily. Van Sinderen himself became one of the most accomplished, if now little recognised, book collectors of the mid-twentieth century.
235 years ago, America’s Founding Fathers signed the United States Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, marking the formation of the country’s most significant and lasting document—as well as the longest continuing charter of government in the world.
UPDATE: Just hours before the sale Sotheby’s called it off, citing institutional interest in the manuscript. The sale was postponed after consultation with the seller to provide interested institutional investors more time to pursue fundraising efforts.
The major November art sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York this November will feature art from the 20th and 21st centuries. A series of sales at Sotheby’s from November 14-17 will showcase the artistic movements from Impressionism to the groundbreaking artists working today. At Christie’s auctions on November 17, 18 and 19 will be led by Jean Michel Basquiat’s Sugar Ray Robinson.
An arresting double walled thrown porcelain bowl with velvet underglaze by Grainne Watts sits comfortably among the sculptures at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International art sale. Titled Vortex Vessel – Orange/Red it is by an artist who has undertaken a number of public commissions. Work by Watts is represented in the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland collection and at the OPW. With highlights by Paul Henry and Jack B. Yeats the sale, which runs until November 1 is on view at the RDS in Dublin this Bank Holiday weekend. The catalogue is online.
A lost piece of Cork industrial history features at Fonsie Mealy’s Irish and International art sale at Castlecomer next November 16. A c1810 watercolour of a watermill attributed to Henry Brocas senior has been identified as likely to be the five storey mill that once stood in the village of Blarney beside the River Martin. The flax mill, owned by James B. O’Sullivan, flourished for several decades. Little remains of it today as it was demolished to make way for the Blarney Woollen Mills. Among more than 400 lots in the upcoming sale is a design by Daniel MacLise for a Cork Art Exhibition Medal in 1852.
With notable exceptions like Eileen Grey and Joseph Walsh Irish designers tend to get overlooked when it comes to auctions of design. Upcoming timed online sales of design at de Veres in Dublin on November 1 and at Adams on on November 8 feature the sort of designer pieces from the middle of the last century and later that are increasingly in vogue here.
There is a wide selection of Danish, Italian and French work available but where are the modernist Irish designers? Artists like Felim Egan and Cecil King, couturier Sybil Connolly whose designs were used on porcelain by Tiffany and Co. and craft makers like the Dixon Carpet Company of Oughterard, established as V’Soske Joyce in 1957 were ahead of the curve. Did they flourish in isolation? Hardly.
We have designers, craftspeople and innovators in plenty who remain relatively unknown or overlooked. Half a century ago, when the Kilkenny Design Workshops was in its infancy, the international view was that the Irish produced only remarkable writers and poets. That theory has been debunked enough to make one wonder whether as yet unheralded Irish designers are waiting to be discovered. Innnovative designers of every sort feature at crowd pulling events like the annual Crafts Fair at the RDS – the next one runs from November 30-December 4.
One of the most expensive pieces at Adams is from an Irish artist that few of us have heard of. Niamh Barry’s “Touch” vessels – hand raised, mirror polished, patinated and brushed solid bronze – are estimated at €20,000-€30,000. After graduating in ceramics from the NCAD in 1991 Niamh Barry turned to metalworking and began translating the natural landscape into metal forms. After decades of perfecting her craft critical acclaim followed her representation by Todd Merrill, the Manhattan dealer in 20th century design. Then her debut at Art Basel Switzerland led to a steady stream of commissions. Her work has been exhibited in London, New York, Switzerland, Dubai, Toronto, Miami and at a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland.The catalogues for the sales at Adams and de Veres feature stylish design pieces for every nook and cranny of the contemporary home and are online. There will be viewing at de Veres this Bank Holiday weekend and viewing gets underway at Adams on November 5.
Viewing gets underway at the RDS in Dublin today for the Irish and International online art sale by Morgan O’Driscoll on November 1. Pictured here is Blue and Brown Still Life with Knife, a gouache and pastel on paper by William Scott from 1975. It is estimated at 20,000-30,000. In a catalogue note to the work Dr. Peter Murray said: “Since the early 1930s, perhaps more than any other Irish artist of the twentieth century (apart from Jack Yeats), Scott’s work has been exhibited worldwide. In 1953, as well as showing at the Sao Paul Bienal, he was introduced by Martha Jackson (at whose New York gallery he had several exhibitions), to Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Mark Rothko. Five years later, he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, and showed also at galleries in Turin, Milan, Munich and other cities.”
The sale is led by Village by the Marsh, a classical Paul Henry landscape, and there is art by Yeats, Lavery, Crozier, Shinnors and many more leading artists. The catalogue is online.
