 |
 |
Robert Carver (c1730-1791) – Figures conversing in a classical landscape
This painting by Robert Carver in its original Irish carved giltwood frame is at an exhibition and sale of 18th – 21st century Irish paintings which opens today at the Gorry Gallery in Dublin. Along with George Barret he was the leading landscape artist in Dubin in the 1750’s-60’s. The exhibition runs until December 19.
SAPPHIRE AND DIAMOND RING, FIRST QUARTER OF THE 20TH CENTURY SOLD FOR €280,000 AT HAMMER
This cushion-shaped Kashmir sapphire weighing 5.08cts made a hammer price of €280,000 at Adam’s sale of fine jewellery and ladies watches in Dublin this evening. With French assay marks and signed Boucheron Paris it was accompanied by a Swiss report authenticatings its Kashmir origin with no indications of heating. The ring was acquired circa 1930’s in Paris by a member of the Guerlain family of perfume fame and has remained with the family by descent.
Hans Eworth – Portrait of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (1538-1578). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £3,212,000
One of the most significant Tudor portraits remaining in private hands is at Sotheby’s Old Master and 19th century paintings evening auction in London on December 3. Painted in 1562 by Hans Eworth, the leading English painter after Hans Holbein, it depicts Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, one of the most powerful noblemen at the court of Elizabeth I. A second cousin to the Queen and heir to one of England’s greatest dynasties, he was the son of Henry Howard, the ‘Poet Earl of Surrey’, and the grandson of the formidable 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Yet even his towering status could not shield him from political peril: he fell from favour and was executed for treason in 1572 – just ten years after this portrait was painted – following a conspiracy to replace Elizabeth I with Mary, Queen of Scots.
Born in Antwerp and active in London from the 1540s, Hans Eworth emerged as England’s leading portraitist in the years following Holbein’s death.
Gabriele Ricciardelli (1690-1782) – A View of Dublin Bay from Mount Merrion. UPDATE: THIS LOT WAS ACQUIRED PRIOR TO THE SALE BY A NATIONAL CULTURAL INSTITUTION
A recently discovered masterpiece painting of Dublin Bay by Gabriele Ricciardelli (1690-1782) will lead the Irish Old Masters auction at Adam’s on December 4. Ricciardelli, who moved from Southern Italy to Dublin in 1753, was the first to paint this spectacular view, which was at Powerscourt until 1948. A view of Dublin Bay from Mount Merrion is estimated at €80,000-€120,000.
The auction at 6 pm on Thursday offers 52 lots. It includes landscapes, seascapes, still lives, portraits and A Fight in a Tavern in Innishannon by Nathaniel Grogan (c1740-1807) which is estimated at €6,000-€8,000. The auction is on view at Adam’s at St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin and the catalogue is online.
Nathaniel Grogan (c1740-1807) – A Fight in a Tavern in Innishannon. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Tony O’Malley (1913-2003) – Summer Breeze, Callan, Co. Kilkenny 1981 UPDATE: THIS MADE 11,500 AT HAMMER
From a unique modernist take by John Luke of a dead tree in 1933 and Paul Henry’s 1929 view of The Great Sugarloaf to a 2003 oil on panel diptych of Birds in our Saltee Islands by Elizabeth Cope, a seascape by Donald Teskey and Children playing at the seaside by Dorothea Sharpe (1874-1955) Ireland in all its multiple glories is celebrated in the art at Whyte’s sale in Dublin on the evening of December 1.
Whyte’s has valued the 143 lots on offer at €1.2 million, a measure of how far the market has progressed in the first quarter of the 21st century. Summer Breeze, Callan, Co. Kilkenny by Tony O’Malley marries the influence of his native place with the light of the Bahamas. The partially abstracted oil on board, full of flowing movement, has an estimate of €12,000-€18,000. The photo realism of another Kilkenny born artist stands in sharp contrast to this work. Now based in west Cork the artist John Doherty’s c2000 edgy, dramatic and architectural painting of the Poolbeg Lighthouse has an estimate of €18,000-€22,000.
The heavily worked White House, Shooting Star by John Shinnors – approached in another entirely different way – offers a contrasting and pleasing landscape scene by night.
JOHN LUKE – THE DEAD TREE UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Diversity in Irish art is nothing new. The two leading lots of the auction, The Dead Tree by John Luke and The Great Sugarloaf by Paul Henry could not be more different. Painted just a couple of years apart and representing classical and modern style each one is estimated at €100,000-€150,000.
There is art by Leo Whelan, Roderic O’Conor, Eva Hamilton, Frank McKelvey, Dan O’Neill, Patrick Collins, Rowan Gillespie, John Behan, Michael Warren and many other artists in a catalogue available to see online. Viewing at Whyte’s today, tomorrow and Monday will be followed by a live auction at Freemason’s Hall on Molesworth St. in Dublin is from 6 pm on Monday.
Elizabeth Cope – Birds in our Saltee Islands 2003. UPDATE: THIS MADE 4,000 AT HAMMER
Michael Angelo Hayes (1820-1877) – The Kildare Hunt 1858. UPDATE: THIS MADE 50,000 AT HAMMER
An 1858 painting of the Kildare Hunt by Michael Angelo Hayes will lead Fonsie Mealy’s winter fine art and antique sale in Castlecomer on December 3 and 4. Estimated at €40,000-€60,000 it is part of a range of items celebrating our equestrian heritage including the Tralee Races Cup, the Blennerhassett Plate and the Kilkenny Hunt Cup.
The Hayes painting is a large group portrait outside Bishopscourt House near Straffan, Co. Kildare. It depicts the Earl of Clonmel, Lord Cloncurry, the Marquis of Drogheda, Thomas Connolly, Captain Colthurst, Sir John Power and many more identifiable figures.
More than 1,000 lots of antique furniture, art and collectibles are to be auctioned. There is a Faberge link gold bracelet, a selection of gold coins, a 19th century dining table on four pods, a Peel P50 one person commuter car from the early 1960’s, a 1963 Morris Minor, a pair of French Empire four branch candelabra, a specimen marble table and a silver ladle by Samuel Johns, Limerick among the leading lots. The catalogue is online.
A vintage Peel P50 one person commuter car. UPDATE: THIS MADE 8,000 AT HAMMER
A Kashmir sapphire and diamond ring by Boucheron will lead a sale of fine jewellery and ladies watches at Adam’s in Dublin on December 4. The sapphire weighs 5.08 carats and the ring is estimated at €100,000-€150,000 but it might be advisable to break out the piggy bank if you really, really want it. So far this year Adam’s sold a Kashmir diamond and sapphire ring for €540,000 at hammer, an early 20th century Kashmir sapphire brooch for €540,000 and a c1900 Kashmir sapphire and diamond brooch for €550,000. This one dates to the first quarter of the 20th century and was acquired in the 1930’s by the Guerlain family of perfume fame in Paris.
Tapestry is the title of the just opened exhibition of new work by world renowned, unstoppable Sean Scully – who turned 80 this year – at the Kerlin Gallery in Dublin. It brings together four distinct bodies of work rooted in a deep engagement with the emotional potential of abstraction. There are recent pencil on paper drawings; hand woven tapestries in collaboration with Mourne Textiles with the drawn line translated into fibre, texture and weight; new large paintings from the Stack series and a selection of new oil on copper paintings. Modest in scale these are rich in colour and emotional depth. The show highlights how drawing functions as a foundational structure in Scully’s work and reveals how Scully’s practice is constructed line by line. Marks accumulate and interlock and are layered into larger forms. The show runs until January 24. Pictured here is Tappan Wall Yellow, 2025, an oil on copper at Kerlin. Another show by Scully – Blue – opens today at Thaddaeus Ropac Marais in Paris and runs until January 17.
Paul Henry RHA (1877-1958) – Coastal Landscape with Galway Hookers
This 1930’s painting by Paul Henry made a hammer price of €170,000 at Adam’s sale of Important Irish Art. It is from the collection of former Taoiseach John A Costello and is believed to have been purchased directly from the artist as it was never on the market before. Another Henry painting from the Costello collection of a Connemara Village was sold by Adam’s in 2016 for €119,000 at hammer.
Other top hammer prices from Adam’s sale on November 26 were: Mary Swanzy, A Cubist Landscape (€38,000); Gerard Dillon, Inishmore Lads, (€32,000); Harry Clarke, Faust in the Witches Kitchen (€30,000); Louis le Brocquy, Cuchulainn in Warp Spasm (1999) (€26,000; Hughie O’Donoghue, Night Cargo (€20,000) and Nathaniel Hone, Hay Wynds (€15,000).
Majella O’Neill Collins (b.1964) – North of Sherkin Island (2024). UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,700 AT HAMMER
This oil on canvas by the Sherkin based artist Majella O’Neill Collins comes up at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online off the wall auction of affordable Irish art which runs until December 2. The estimate is €1,500-€2,500. More than 450 lots from a wide variety of artists will come under the hammer. Among them are Graham Knuttel, Eileen Meaghar, Desmond Carrick, Sean Scully, James Brohan, William Crozier, Tony O’Malley, Markey Robinson, Elizabeth Cope, Louis le Brocquy and Mr. Brainwash.
