Frida Kahlo’s 1940 self portrait The Dream, the Bed sold for $54,660,000 at Sotheby’s in New York last night to become the most expensive work ever by a female artist. It surpassed the record for Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 which sold for $44.4 million in 2014.
The painting shows Kahlo asleep in a wooden, colonial-style bed that floats. Above the bed lies a skeleton figure wrapped in dynamite. The artist depicted herself and her life. Injured in a bus accident aged 18 she began to paint whilst bedridden with a damaged spine and pelvis. She wore casts until her death in 1954 at age 47. The buyer’s identity was not revealed.
Rowan Gillespie (b.1953) – MAQUETTE FOR W.B. YEATS, SLIGO, 1989. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This maquette for the sculpture of W.B. Yeats erected outside Ulster Bank on Stephen Street, Sligo is at Whyte’s sale of Important Irish Art on December 1 with an estimate of €15,000-€20,000. It was jointly commissioned by the Adhoc Yeats Sculpture Committee, Ulster Bank and the local community. The bronze was placed in position in May 1990 to mark the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death. Viewing for the auction at Whyte’s is now underway at Molesworth St. in Dublin and the catalogue is online.
Early Victorian fitted mahogany workbox UPDATE: THIS MADE 600 AT HAMMER
This quality early Victorian workbox is at Reilly’s live auction in Prosperous, Co. Kildare on November 22. The estimate is €900-€1,100. The auction of 447 lots will include contents from several houses and features rugs, mirrors, a selection of antique furniture, art and collectibles. The catalogue is online.
Cecil Maguire – Easter Light on Inishmaan. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Irish Paintings by artists including Cecil Maguire, Arthur Maderson, Charles Harper, Markey Robinson, Arthur Armstrong, Mat Grogan, Frank Egginton, George Campbell, Manus Walsh, George Gillespie and others feature at Dolan’s online auction which runs until November 24. The auction offers a collection of more than 70 Irish whiskeys, mostly Very Rare Midleton, along with collectibles, stamps and books.
Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer – sold for $236.4 million.
Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer by Klimt made $236.4 million at Sotheby’s in New York last night to become the most expensive auction sale of a modern work of art. This was the second highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction. The most expensive artwork sold at auction this year was from the collection of Leonard Lauder, philanthropist, cosmetics magnate and legendary collector who died aged 92 last June. He donated his $1 billion Cubist art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The $706 million total for the night included the white glove sale of 24 lots from the Lauder collection which brought in $456.2 million. The first Sotheby’s auction at the Breuer Building made the highest total ever achieved by Sotheby’s for a one night auction. The Now and Contemporary sale brought in $178.5 million.
The record for a work of art sold at auction is Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, sold by Christie’s for $450.3 million in 2017. In 2022 Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn sold for $195 million at Christie’s and this record has now been surpassed.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for November 1, 2025)
Great depth of bidding, numerous artist records, and palpable energy marked the opening night of Christie’s Marquee Week in New York, where the auction house achieved exceptional results for two premier sales: The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis and the 20th Century Evening Sale. In a packed, energetic saleroom at Rockefeller Center, and with active online bidders, the two sales achieved a total of $689,795,000 million, were 96% sold by lot, 97% sold by value.
The top lot of the evening was Mark Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) from the Weis collection. It work sold for $62,160,000 to a bidder on the phone after a fierce four-minute and 40-second bidding battle—also securing the highest online bid ever for a live auction at Christie’s. Another highlight of the collection was La Lecture, a portrait of Marie-Therese by Pablo Picasso which made $45,485,000.
The top lot from the 20th Century Evening sale was Claude Monet’s Nymphéas from the collection of Japan’s Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art. It made $45,485,000
Two 90 Gun Ships of the Line entering Cork Harbour by George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson at Morgan O’Driscoll’s sale on November 24 should arouse much interest. It adorned the cover of Peter Murray’s book Maritime Paintings of Cork written to coincide with a popular exhibition of the same name at the Port of Cork hq in 2005 and is one of Atkinson’s more ambitious works. With three masts, steam engines and single funnels these are an early manifestation of steam driven warships. As they enter the harbour following another steamship a frigate with sails unfurled is leaving. It is flying the Blue Peter, known as the departure flag. A cutter in the foreground is possibly the Cork pilot boat.
A 15th century Northern European altarpiece is among the highlights at Sheppards sale in Durrow on November 25 and 26. More than 1,200 lots of fine and decorative art, silver, furniture and sculpture drawn from Irish and international collections will be on offer including a Qing Dynasty silk wall hanging from Abbeyleix House. The altarpiece is estimated at €25,000-€45,000.
Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol at Art Source at the RDS.
The winter art sale season with a feast in store is kick started in Ireland this weekend by Art Source at the RDS. With more than 200 artists and galleries this is Ireland’s largest art fair with a huge selection of affordable art. Highlights include a portrait of Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol and work by Tracey Emin exhibited by Gormleys. Expected to draw more than 15,000 visitors the event features the Irish debut of Naples based Fonderia Artistica Ruocco.
This is a prelude to the season’s major sales of important Irish art. An online sale by Morgan O’Driscoll on November 24 with highlights by Yeats, O’Malley, Blackshaw and George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson will be followed by Dublin auctions by de Veres and Gormleys on November 25. Roderic O’Conor, William Leech, Paul Henry, Yeats and Mainie Jellett are at de Veres. Adams on November 26 offers art by Paul Henry, Yeats, Harry Clarke, Camille Souter, Gerard Dillon, Mary Swanzy and Hughie O’Donoghue. Among the highlights at Whyte’s on December 1 is work by John Luke, Paul Henry, Grace Henry, Frank McKelvey, Louis le Brocquy, Rowan Gillespie, Donald Teskey and John Behan.
Nature Morte by Roderic O’Conor at de Veres. UPDATE: THIS MADE 115,000 AT HAMMER
One of the more unusual items that Treasures Irish Art will bring to the Limerick fair today and tomorrow.
Collectors can expect the unexpected, and a lot of variety, at the National Antiques, Art and Vintage fair at Limerick Racecourse today and tomorrow (November 15 and 16) from 11 am on each day.
If you still haven’t found what you are looking for this is as good a place to start the search as any. More than 70 dealers from right around Ireland will be in attendance with everything from art, antique furniture and Persian rugs to jewellery, silver, ceramics, vintage fashion, banknotes, militaria and even a suit of armour.
Little wonder that this is one of the most popular events on Ireland’s annual antique calendar. Running now for 35 years the three to five times yearly Limerick fair continues to go from strength to strength.
A Clarice Cliff Bizarre Nasturtium pattern bowl from 1933 at Edwin Mercer’s stand.
Be inspired by some stylish ceramics at Brian Hurley’s stand or a pair of opal and emerald earrings at Edwin Mercer’s stand. This is where you will also find a full set of Beswick 757 flying swallows of a type that went out of production in 1973 and a Bizarre Nasturtium pattern Clarice Cliff bowl dating to 1933 in superb condition.
There are paintings, furniture and decorative objects at Country Mile Antiques while Joe Burns Foundry Antiques will offer metal wall sconces, candlesticks and lanterns. The Purple Onion Gallery will bring art along with some Havana cigars and a selection of French wines.
A selection of smaller furniture pieces from Greene’s Antiques.
A walk through the fair will bring you to no less than six coin, banknote and militaria dealers. There are gold Albert chains, silver chains, diamonds, precious and semi precious stones, books, Art Deco bronze figures. Eddie Moylan is among those who will offer a selection of jewellery items. Demand for lovely old furniture may not be as strong as it was once but it has not gone away, and there are some stylish choices for modern homes like a marquetry inlaid kidney shaped tray at Greenes.
The variety on offer always extends to vintage fashion and Eily Henry will bring a choice selection of hats, handbags and accessories. No one enjoys the thrill of the chase quite as much as an established collector of anything from Victorian hat pins to Limerick silver to branded porcelain to rare coins to whatever you are having yourself when they happen across a long sought after coveted piece.
Markets and fairs are enduringly popular throughout Europe and beyond. This – the biggest one in Ireland this year – is an opportunity to find something unusual and different, maybe even to get a new collecting habit underway.
Robert Hutchinson will bring a selection of coins, banknotes and medals.
