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    • IRISH SCULPTURE SCORES AT DE VERES

    June 13th, 2018

    The interest in Irish sculpture was one of the most heartening aspects of a highly successful sale by de Veres in Dublin last night.  There was impressive hammer prices for a number of lots. Marching On by Patrick O’Reilly made 50,000 at hammer, Click by Rowan Gillespie made 30,500 at hammer, Black Angel by Michael Warren made 24,000 at hammer and Tumbling by Bob Quinn made 10,500. Here are some examples:

    Life (2002) by Rowan Gillespie made 25,000 at hammer over a top estimate of 15,000.

    Swallows by Colm Brennan made 15,500 at hammer over a top estimate of 9,000.

    Heron in the Reeds by James McCarthy made 8,000 at hammer over a top estimate of 5,000.

    Marching On by Patrick O’Reilly made 50,000 at hammer over a top estimates of 30,000

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    16.2 MILLION VASE SETS NEW RECORD FOR CHINESE PORCELAIN SOLD IN FRANCE

    June 12th, 2018

    An Imperial 18th century ‘Yangcai’ Famille-Rose porcelain vase sold for 16.2 million at Sotheby’s in Paris today.  This was a new record for any Chinese porcelain sold in France. This lost treasure of Imperial China was found in an attic and brought in to Sotheby’s in a shoebox after having been discovered by chance in the attic of a French family home.

    The vase is of exceptional rarity: the only known example of its kind, it was produced by the Jingdezhen workshops for the magnificent courts of the Qianlong Emperor (1735-1796). Famille Rose porcelains of the period (or ‘yangcai’ porcelains, as they are known) are extremely rare on the market, with most examples currently housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and other museums around the world.

    These so-called yangcai porcelain commissions were the very epitome of the ware produced by the Jingdezhen imperial kilns. They were made as one-of-a-kind items, sometimes in pairs, but never in large quantities. This technique combined a new colour palette with Western-style compositions. Beyond their superior quality, yangcai enamels were intended to create the most opulent and luxurious effect possible.  Only one other similar vase, although with slightly different subject matter and decorative borders, now in the Guimet museum in Paris, is known.

    Left to the grandparents of the present owners by an uncle, the vase is listed among the contents of the latter’s Paris apartment after his death in 1947. It is recorded alongside several other Chinese and Japanese objects including other Chinese porcelains, two dragon robes, a yellow silk textile, and an unusual bronze mirror contained in a carved lacquer box.   While the exact provenance of the vase and the other Chinese and Japanese pieces before 1947 cannot be traced, the receipt of a Satsuma censer acquired as a wedding gift in the 1867 Universal Exhibition in Paris by an ancestor of the family suggests an active interest in Asian art at a very early date. Similarly, this vase may well have been acquired in Paris in the late 19th century when the arrival of Asian works of art initiated a fashion for Japanese and Chinese art

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    SOME HIGHLIGHTS FROM DE VERES IRISH ART SALE

    June 11th, 2018

    Among the highlights at the Irish art auction at de Veres in Dublin on June 12 are works by William Scott, Paul Henry, Colin Middleton, Mainie Jellett, Patrick Collins, Dan O’Neill and Camille Souter.  The catalogue is online.  Here is a small selection:

    PAUL HENRY – A ROAD IN CONNEMARA  UPDATE: THIS MADE 64,000 AT HAMMER

    (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for June 4, 2018).

    COLIN MIDDLETON – PAYSAGE DES REVES MAUVAIS  UPDATE: THIS MADE 50,000 AT HAMMER

    MARY SWANZY – HOUSE WITH RED SHUTTERS  UPDATE: THIS MADE 9,000 AT HAMMER

    MAINIE JELLETT – FLOWER FORMS  UPDATE: THIS MADE 30,000 AT HAMMER

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    A 1910 KANDINSKY AT SOTHEBY’S THIS JUNE

    June 10th, 2018

    Wassily Kandinsky – Gabriele Münter im Freien vor der Staffelei  UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £5.3 MILLION.

    A 1910 painting by Wassily Kandinsky of Gabriele Münter Painting Outdoors in front of an Easel  comes up at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening and Day sales in London on  June 19 and 20 June.   The auctions will include a spectrum of works by some of the most important, challenging and powerful German and Austrian artists of the 20th century. Featuring paintings and works on paper, many of which are completely fresh to the market, by leading figures such as Wassily Kandinsky, Emil Nolde, Franz Marc, Alexej von Jawkensky, August Macke, Max Liebermann and Egon Schiele, the group of over 65 works constitutes one of Sotheby’s largest offerings of German and Austrian art in recent years.

    Leading the group is  the Kandinsky which is estimated at £3.5 million.  It marks the artist’s definitive transition into abstraction. His first major breakthrough was his discovery of how colour, when disassociated from representational concerns, could become the principal subject of a painting. In this work, he achieved a delicate balance between the subtle figuration of Gabriele Münter – his companion, lover and fellow artist – and the almost completely abstracted landscape that surrounds her. In 1908 they discovered the small town of Murnau in the foothills of the Alps, and the unique context of the Bavarian countryside was key to Kandinsky’s move towards abstraction. Münter appears in four paintings from this period, of which this oil is the only one still in private hands. The work originally belonged to Jawlensky, who kept it in his collection until his death in 1941, perhaps as a memento of the happy, productive years he spent in Murnau alongside Kandinsky in a spirit of communal and artistic collaboration.

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    18TH TO 21ST CENTURY IRISH PAINTINGS AT GORRY GALLERY

    June 9th, 2018

    Portrait of a young girl by Charles Skottowe (1793-1842)

    A rarity by a Cork artist, a portrait of a young girl playing with her mother’s jewellery box, features at the current exhibition at the Gorry Gallery in Dublin.  Very few works by Charles Skottowe (1793-1842) survive.  Skottowe is recorded as working in Cork in the 1820’s and exhibiting with the Cork Society for promoting the Fine Arts.  He showed at the RHA in 1829.

    In the following decade he exhibited with the Royal Academy and the British Institution.  His portrait of Capt Sir William Edward Parry is at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and his portrait of John Ayrton Paris is in the Royal College of Physicians in London.
    The exhibition of 18th to 21st century Irish paintings and sculpture, accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, runs to June 23.  A still life of Crab, Fish and Vegetables by another and better known locally Cork artist
    Daniel MacDonald (1820-1853) is inscribed Cork and dated 1843.  There are portraits by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Nathanial Hone, William Cumming and others, landscapes and seascapes by William Ashford, James Arthur O’Connor, George Barret and Edwin Hayes as well as The Colleen Bawn and The Colleen Dhu, peasants of the County Galway, by Samuel Lover (1797-1868).  The catalogue cover lot is a c1789 portrait of a young gentleman in Naples by Hugh Douglas Hamilton.

    Still Life of crab, fish and vegetables by Daniel MacDonald (1820-1853)

    The Colleen Bawn and the Colleen Dhu by Samuel Lover (1797-1868)

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    AN EILEEN GRAY HIGHLIGHT AT CHRISTIE’S NEW YORK DESIGN SALE

    June 8th, 2018

    Eileen Gray – a transat armchair with original calfskin upholstery, ebonised lacquered work and nickel plated brass.  UPDATE: THIS MADE $1,596,500, setting a world auction record for a ‘Transat’ chair.

    Eileen Gray’s (1879-1976) ‘Transat’ chair from 1927-30 is a highlight of Christie’s design sale in New York on June 20.  It is estimated at $1-1.5 million.  The chair was conceived in the context of the furnishing of the villa E1027, the house at Roquebrune in the South of France, that Gray designed with and for her associate Jean Badovici. The radical modern villa – built on a rocky slope overlooking the sea – inspired Gray to explore new materials and possibilities in its bespoke furniture and fittings. For this iconic piece, Gray references
    the classic deck-chair, a design of pure functionalism, as she plays on the marine theme, calling to mind the contemporary
    engagement with water sports, the outdoors, and the popularity of a new generation of ocean liners.

    The auction is comprised of two private American collections and includes pieces by some of the most iconic names of French design including Pierre Chareau, Jen Dunand, Jean Michel Frank, Francois Xavier Lalanne, Pierre Legrain and Emile Jacques Ruhlmann.

    UPDATE: THE SALE TOTALLED $8.3 MILLION.

    Emile Jacques Ruhlmann – a ‘granet’desk c1930  UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $150,000

    Jean Dunand vases offered in separate lots  UPDATE: THESE MADE VARIOUS PRICES FROM $43,850 TO $87,500

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    MATISSE PORTRAIT OF MARY HUTCHINSON AT SOTHEBY’S

    June 7th, 2018

    Henri Matisse, Portrait of Mary Hutchinson, 1936  UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £3.1 MILLION

    A Matisse portrait of the writer Mary Hutchinson comes up at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern evening sale in London on June 19. It was created in the Paris studio of Matisse in 1936 and is estimated at £2-3 million.  Mary Hutchinson, a member of the Bloomsbury gr0up, was an active patron of the arts throughout her life.  A cousin of Lytton Strachey and friend of artist Duncan Grant, Mary was introduced to the Bloomsbury set and commenced a decade-long love affair with the art critic Clive Bell, the husband of painter Vanessa Bell. In 1915, Vanessa painted her own portrait of Mary, in dazzling colours reminiscent of Matisse’s style.

    The charcoal portrait  – one of only a handful of commissioned portrait drawings Matisse made of English women –  is coming for sale from the estate of the late Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, QC, the sitter’s son. He was a renowned criminal barrister who defended Christine Keeler and Howard Marks, as well as the publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover in a long career of watershed legal cases and cause célèbres.  The sitting was arranged by the artist’s son-in-law Georges Duthuit, who was a writer and friend of Vanessa and Duncan.

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    ASHFORD VIEWS OF MAYNOOTH CASTLE AT BONHAMS

    June 6th, 2018

    A pair of views of Maynooth Castle, by William Ashford P.R.H.A. (1746-1824)  comes up at Bonhams Old Master Paintings sale in London on July 4.  These fresh to market works are from the collection of the Duke and Duchess of Leinster.   Painted in the Anglo-Irish Romantic tradition, they were commissioned by William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster.

    Ashford, in a remarkably short space of time, had advanced from being a flower painter to becoming one of the most accomplished and sought-after view painters in Ireland.  He  was elected as the first President of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1823, the year before his death. Depicting the ruins of the former FitzGerald family seat, the ‘Views of Maynooth Castle’ are signed ‘W. Ashford’ and dated 1779 and 1780. In the Carton inventory of 1885 they were listed as hanging in the passage by the principle staircase of the residence. The paintings are estimated at £80,000 – 120,000.

    WILLIAM ASHFORD P.R.H.A. (Birmingham 1746-1824 Dublin) Views of Maynooth Castle, a pair

    WILLIAM ASHFORD P.R.H.A. (Birmingham 1746-1824 Dublin) Views of Maynooth Castle, a pair

     

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    AN AUCTION OF IRISH ART BY DE VERES

    June 4th, 2018
    An Irish art auction by de Veres takes centre stage on June 12, hard on the heels of sales by Whyte’s, Morgan O’Driscoll and James Adam.  The leading lot at de Veres is William Scott’s Painting 1959 with an estimate of 250,000-350,000.
    The June 12 sale at the Royal College of Physicians on Kildare St. in Dublin will be on view at de Veres on Kildare St. from June 9. The catalogue is brimful of lots by artists as varied as Paul Henry, Colin Middleton, Mainie Jellett, Patrick Collins, Dan O’Neill, Roderic O’Conor, Michael Farrell, Camille Souter and John Doherty with sculpture by Rowan Gillespie, Patrick O’Reilly, Michael Farrell and other leading Irish lights.

    The growing confidence in the market for Irish art is reflected in estimates like 50,000-70,000 for Paysage des reves mauvais by Colin Middleton, 40,000-60,000 for  A Road in Connemara by Paul Henry, 30,000-50,000 for John Doherty’s photo realist depiction with acrylic on canvas of John and Denis Mangan’s shop, Killorglin and Swallows under the roof by Patrick Collins is estimated at 8,000-10,000.

    Painting 1959 by William Scott  UPDATE: THIS MADE 280,000 AT HAMMER

    John and Denis Mangan’s shop, Killorglin, Co. Kerry by John Doherty  UPDATE: THIS MADE 66,000 AT HAMMER

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    CORK TABLE AND CHAIRS AT MARSHS SALE

    June 3rd, 2018

    A set of 12 inlaid Cork 11-bar chairs and a four pod dining table will be a feature lots at Marshs auction in Cork on June 9.  Both are by O’Connell’s of Cork and from the Dowdall family formerly of Dunsland, Glanmire. The chairs are estimated at 8,000-10,000 and the table at 2,000-3,000.

    A table that functioned as the boardroom table at Cork lawyers O’Flynn Exhams is also in the sale.  It last changed hands at Marshs in the 1960’s and was previously in the possession of Mahony’s of Blarney.  Prime lots of furniture include a mid 18th century Georgian two door glazed bookcase (8,000-10,000) and a pair of large Regency gilt wall mirrors (3,000-3,500).  A pair of French 19th century marble topped side cabinets is estimated at 2,000-2,500 and a large Victorian dining table has an estimate of 2,000-3,000. Other lots include a set of 12 mahogany dining chairs (1,000-2,000), a pair of Victorian marquetry display cabinets (2,000-2,500), a 19th century hunting table (1,500-2,000) and an Italian marble topped console table (1,500-2,000).

    A set of 11-bar chairs and dining table by O’Connell’s, Cork  UPDATE: THE CHAIRS MADE 8,000, THE TABLE 3,000

    A mid 18th century Georgian bookcase – UPDATE: THIS MADE 7,000

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