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  • A KNEELING MAN IN PROFILE BY RUBENS AT CHRISTIE’S

    March 12th, 2023

    A Study of a Kneeling Man in Profile by Peter Paul Rubens will be among the highlights at Christie’s annual Old Master and 19th Century Drawings sale in Paris on March 22. Drawing inspiration from Caracci and other Italian greats this work is an example of the Italian influence that remained with Rubens long after his return to Antwerp. The delicate study was created using one of his favourite techniques, black chalk accentuated with white.   Drawings by Rubens rarely appear and this one was last on the market in 1867. The estimate is €250,000-€350,000.  The auction, with works spanning more than 400 years of European art, will coincide with the opening of the Salon du Dessin in Paris, the foremost fair dedicated to drawing and now a major international event. Image © Christie’s Images Limited 2023. UPDATE: THIS MADE €378,000 at hammer.

    SIXMILEBRIDGE SALE TO INCLUDE ANTIQUE DEALER STOCK

    March 11th, 2023
    19th century Chinese export sterling silver tea set

    Items from the estate of the late antique dealer Stephen Stock will come under the hammer at Aidan Foley’s two day sale at Sixmilebridge on March 13 and 14.  Belfast born and Dublin based for over 30 years he did not have a shop of his own, but was a respected source and supplier the antique trade. The auction will include tribal art, Oriental items and an early abstract work attributed to Sean Scully.One of his last commissions, with Niall Mullen, was an interior fit out of the upstairs bar at The Queens in Dalkey.  His collection, curated by Niall Mullen, will come up in a two day Spring sale of more than 1,400 lots of art, antique furniture, rugs, jewellery and collectibles.  The top lot is a 19th century Chinese export sterling silver tea set with an estimate of €4,000-€6,000.

    HISTORIC BOER WAR CHAIR AT MULLEN’S COLLECTOR’S CABINET

    March 10th, 2023

    On May 31, 1902, after two-and-a-half years of conflict between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South African Republic and the Orange Free State); the Boer War ended. On that day the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed, placing South Africa within the British Empire. This ia the Captain of the Guard’s chair used at the treaty signing by Major Charles Roper-Lindsay, Royal Munster Fusiliers. He was attached to Utrecht-Vryheid Mounted Police. The stinkwood dining chair has a brass plaque engraved “2nd Boer War – Used at Signing of Peace of – Vereeniging, May 1902 – Capt. of Guard – Maj. Charles Roper-Lindsay”. It comes up as lot 44 with an estimate of €800-1,200 at Mullen’s Collector’s Cabinet online auction on March 11. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    UNIQUE BEHAN BRONZE CALLED KYRENIA SHIP AT DOLAN’S

    March 10th, 2023
    John Behan RHA – Kyrenia Ship. UPDATE: THIS MADE 5,800 AT HAMMER

    Kyrenia Ship by John Behan comes up at Dolan’s timed online Spring auction. The sale goes online today and will run until Monday, March 20. The sculpture is dated to 2008 and is unique. The Greek Cypriot ship, fifteen metres in length, was built in389 BC. It sank around 288 BC three miles off the coast of Kyrenia. The estimate is €4,000-6,000. The sale comprises Irish art and sculpture, almost 60 collectible bottles of Irish whisky including some very rare Midletons, antique furniture and collectibles including rugs and books.

    DAMIEN HIRST MATCHBOOKS AT O’DRISCOLL ONLINE AUCTION

    March 9th, 2023
    DAMIEN HIRST (B.1965) – Pharmacy Matchbooks. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,400 AT HAMMER

    This set of 54 individual matchbooks from a set of 60 designed by Damien Hirst for the Pharmacy Restaurant comes up at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current online art auction. Each matchbook is numbered and stamped with the pharmacy stamp along with the name and address: Pharmacy Restaurant in Notting Hill, London. The estimate for lot 42 is €600-900. The catalogue for the sale is online and the auction runs until March 13.

    F.E. McWilliam at Sotheby’s Made in Britain sale

    March 9th, 2023
    Frederick Edward McWilliam, R.A. – Mother and Daughter

    Mother and Daughter by F. E. McWilliam comes up as lot 49 at Sotheby’s Made in Britain sale online until March 14. The bronze is 45 and a quarter inches tall and 22 inches wide. Conceived in 1957 it is number 2 from an edition of 3. The estimate is £30,000-£50,000.

    SHOW HIGHLIGHTS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EQUITY AND EQUALITY

    March 8th, 2023
    Celeste’s Liquid Lunch with Friends by Mary Ronayne

    The difference between equity and equality is the focus of Genesis, a show by six female artists which opens on International Women’s Day today at HOFA Gallery in Mayfair, London.  Among the exhibitors is Kildare based Mary Ronayne who focuses on the reality of inequity in her better known portraits and fete galantes. She exposes it through the unease and doubtful looks of people, especially women, who seem to question their situation while engaged in pleasurable pastimes. Curator Simonida Pavicevic says female artists face unequal barriers to entry and unequal representation. “Equity matters if we are to achieve lasting equality for women, especially in the contemporary art world”.  

    A CLASS OF FOUJITA CATS FINDS A NEW HOME

    March 7th, 2023
    LÉONARD TSUGUHARU FOUJITA (1886–1968) – Classe de chats  ‘Foujita 1949  COURTESY CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LIMITED 2023

    The first private museum in Japan dedicated to the works of Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita has been helped by the private sales department at Christie’s in New York to acquire a major picture by the artist. Classe de chats is on display in the Ando Museum of Art in Karuizawa, Japan until September 12 next 2023 as part of the exhibition Tsuguharu Foujita: Room for Cats and Girls.

    Cats played an important role for Foujita on a personal level and in his art. He depicted them with tenderness on their own, as companions in portraiture, and later in life as anthropomorphic animals in lively scenes. Animals with humanlike qualities had populated the myths of his childhood, and are famously depicted in ukiyo-e prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, but also from Western sources, such as La Fontaine’s Fables. Classe de chats ranks among the masterpieces Foujita painted during his one-year stay in New York in 1949. A New York paper declared then that: “No living artist can depict cats in action whilst capturing such variety of expression.”

    SUCCESS FOR ARTIST LIAM O’NEILL AT WHYTE’S

    March 6th, 2023
    TWO HORSES – LIAM O’NEILL (B.1954) made €35,000 at hammer

    Two Horses, an oil on canvas by Liam O’Neill made a hammer price of €35,000 over a top estimate of €7,000 at Whyte’s sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin tonight. Another work by the self taught artist Collecting Hay by the Coast, made €17,000 over a top estimate of €12,000. Liam O’Neill has developed a reputation as one of our finest portrayers of rural life, especially around West Kerry. He is a native of the Dingle Peninsula.

    The top lot of the sale was Paul Henry’s Landscape, Connemara which made €135,000 at hammer. Old Houses, Pau by Dan O’Neill made €56,000, Docklands VII 2002 by Donald Teskey made €46,000, The Enthusiast by Jack B Yeats made €32,000 and Strange Days by Jim Fitzpatrick made €19,000.

    CAMILLE SOUTER CREDITED WITH EXTRAORDINARY BODY OF WORK

    March 5th, 2023
    Camille Souther (1929-2023) – First into Calabria

    First into Calabria by Camille Souter sold for a hammer price of €18,000 at the James Adam sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on May 1. The artist died on March 3 aged 93. This mixed media work, signed and dated 1962, had a top estimate of €15,000 and was previously in the collection of Sir Basil Goulding. It was exhibited in a show of 12 Irish Painters in New York in 1963. Another work by Souter in the same sale, Red Achill, made a hammer price of €10,000 over a top estimate of 8,000. Born in the UK and brought up in Ireland, Camille Souter trained as a nurse in London before turning to painting in the 1950s and exhibited extensively from the 1960s onwards. She is credited with having produced an extraordinary body of work over nearly 70 years.

    Adams sale brought in €1.25 million and was headed by Orpen’s portrait of Yvonne Aupicq as a nun which made €125,000 over a top estimate of €50,000 after a battle between seven bidders. It went to a UK based agent.