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    • A GUINNESS FAMILY GUARDI FOR £25 MILLION

    April 5th, 2017

    FRANCESCO GUARDI (Venice 1712–1793), The Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi. UPDATE: THIS MADE £26.2 MILLION

    A painting by Francesco Guardi handed down through generations of the Guinness family will lead Christie’s Classic Week Old Masters evening sale in London on July 6.  The Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi is being sold for only the second time since it was painted in the mid 1760’s.  It is expected to make around £25 million.

    It is one of a pair of Venetian views by Guardi, one looking north and the other south, first acquired in 1768, probably from the artist, by a young English grand tourist called Chaloner Arcedeckne. Both paintings stayed in his family until 1891 when they were sold privately for £3,850 to Edward Cecil Guinness, the chief executive and then chairman of the brewing company.  He was the first Earl of Iveagh.  The two Guardi’s were kept by the Guinness’s and hung at Pyrford Court in Surrey.  They were separated in 2011 when Rialto Bridge from the Fondamenta del Carbon, was sold to an anonymous bidder at Sotheby’s for £26.7m–a record for a Venetian view painting. A temporary export bar failed to keep the work in the UK.

    Henry Pettifer, Head of Christie’s Old Master Paintings EMERI said: “This majestic view of Venice is one of the great masterpieces of eighteenth-century view painting. Painted in the mid-1760s, at the height of the artist’s career, this is a monumental tour de force displaying the full range of Guardi’s technical virtuosity and his unique ability to capture the atmosphere and sensuous experience of being in Venice. After the record-breaking Old Master sales at Christie’s in 2016, with the Rubens Lot and his Daughters and the pair of Rembrandt portraits sold by private treaty, we are confident this great Guardi will arouse enormous interest from global collectors of masterpieces, from Old Masters to Contemporary, this July.”

    The Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi will be shown at Classic Week in New York from April 22-26 before returning to Venice for the first time for an exhibition at the Aman Hotel (May 8-15) to coincide with the Venice Biennale. It will then travel to Hong Kong for exhibition from May 26-29 before returning to London.

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    THE MOST VALUABLE GEMSTONE EVER SOLD AT AUCTION

    April 4th, 2017

    THERE was a new world auction record for any diamond or jewel when the Pink Star, a 59.60-carat oval mixed-cut Fancy Vivid Pink Internally Flawless diamond, sold for US$71.2 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong tonight. This is the highest ever price for any object sold at auction in Asia.  The most valuable gemstone ever sold at auction made more than double the previous record for a fancy vivid pink diamond. The Pink Star was acquired by Hong Kong jeweller Chow Tai Fook and renamed The CTF Pink in memory of the late Dr. Cheng Yu-Tung, father of the current chairman and founder of Chow Tai Fook.  It also commemorates the 88th anniversary of the brand. The winning telephone bid was placed by Dr. Henry Cheng Kar-Shun, chairman of the company.

    “It is fitting that the owner of the most prestigious jeweller in Greater China should today break the record for the most valuable item ever sold in Asia as well as the most valuable diamond ever sold at auction – now appropriately named the CTF Pink – said Sotheby’s President and CEO Tad Smith, adding, “And Sotheby’s has been honoured and thrilled to serve this very discerning client for many years.”
    David Bennett, Worldwide Chairman of Sotheby’s Jewellery Division, added: “I am delighted that this magnificently beautiful diamond has been rightfully crowned the most valuable gemstone ever sold at auction. The price has more than doubled the record for a fancy vivid pink diamond that we set just last year in Geneva.”

    (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for March 20, 2017)

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    ONE OF TURNER’S GREATEST WORKS AT SOTHEBY’S IN JULY

    April 4th, 2017

    J.M.W. Turner (1775-1881) – Ehrenbreitstein UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £18.5 MILLION

    One of the greatest works by J.M.W. Turner still in private hands comes up at Sotheby’s in July. Ehrenbreitstein is the most important oil of a German subject that Turner ever painted.  It depicts the ruined fortress of Ehrenbreitstein near Coblenz – a place of special significance for the artist. Painted in 1835  this late work is from a period widely considered Turner’s best.  Other works from this time now hang in the world’s greatest museums, with only a minute number of this importance and quality remaining in private ownership. The subject of enormous critical acclaim when it was first exhibited in 1835.  It comes up in London on July 5 with an estimate of £15-25 million.

    Major works of such quality by Turner are rare on the international market. The last example to be offered (Rome, from Mount Aventine, painted in the same year as Ehrenbreitstein and offered at Sotheby’s in 2014) made a record £30.3 million.  This was the highest price achieved for any British-born artist at auction, and placed Turner alongside Rubens and Raphael as one of just three artists from the pre-Impressionist era to have achieved prices at this level.

    Alex Bell, Co-Chairman of Sotheby’s International Old Masters Department, said: “This painting was one of five that Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1835; the other four of which are now in some of the most distinguished institutions in the world. Of those five paintings, it was Ehrenbreitstein that caught the imagination of public and critics alike – and it’s easy to see why. Its extraordinary range and depth of colour, and typically inspired and imaginative use of light, would in any case mark this painting out as a masterpiece, but its true greatness lies in the way Turner applies his painterly genius to transform the ruins of the famous fortress into a poetic and symbolic image as resonant then as it is today.“

    Of the other four paintings exhibited by Turner in that year one is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, one is at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, one is at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and one is in the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio.

    (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for September 8, 2014)

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    A RECORD FOR WESTERN ART AT SOTHEBY’S HONG KONG

    April 3rd, 2017

    The scene at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong.

    There was a record for a piece of western contemporary art sold at auction in Asia when Andy Warhol’s Mao made US$12.6 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong.  It was bought by an Asian collector.  The Mao series marked a significant stylistic turning point for Warhol in the 1970’s. Mao was created in 1973, a year after the crucial moment of global politics where President Nixon visited China and Chairman Mao. Warhol’s portraits of Mao are undeniably among the most influential and enduring of all his images. The work is one of a series of 22 paintings, and four of them are in renowned public collections.

    The painting in red and gold carries the highly expressionistic and flamboyant handling of paint as well as the artist’s resolution and confidence.  Mao was transformed into the newest player on the fashion circuit and a glamourised member of the 1970’s pop idols.

    The Modern and Contemporary Art evening sale totalled US$73.6 million.

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    CONTENTS FROM HOME OF DEPARTED AIB CHIEF AT BANDON SALE

    April 2nd, 2017
    Contents from Glebe House, Lisheen, Skibbereen, Co. Cork – former home of departed AIB chief David Duffy – will feature at Hegarty’s sale in Bandon on April 9.
    Prime lots include a Killarney wood tip up centre table inlaid with a view of Muckross Abbey and decorated with shamrock and other local views. It is estimated at 10,000-20,000.

    There is an Irish Regency fold over card table (2,500-3,500), an Edwardian walnut and ebonised credenza (1,000-2,000), a Cork Regency Nelson sideboard (300-500), a French  gilt wood pier mirror (1,500-2,500) and a pair of Art Deco style aviation armchairs (1,200-1,800). Among the artists who feature are Arthur Maderson, Peter Copperwhite, Markey Robinson and Marie Carroll and collectibles include a snuff bottle and a bronze 19th century Tibetan figure. Around 300 lots will come under the hammer.

    A tip up Killarney wood centre table (10,000-20,000)  UPDATE: THIS MADE 11,000 AT HAMMER.

    A Regency fold over card table (2,500-3,500). UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,150 AT HAMMER. 

     

     

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    AN 18TH CENTURY GALWAY MUG AT BONHAMS

    April 1st, 2017

    18th century silver mug by Mark Fallon  UPDATE: THIS MADE £15,000

    A rare 18th century silver mug by Mark Fallon, Galway c1730 which was on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1974 to 2003 comes up at Bonham’s in London on April 5.

    One of only three known secular pieces made by Mark Fallon the mug is straight sided with a double scroll handle and engraved with two crests. The Jacobite Galway, which supported the Catholic King James II, was besieged and captured during the Williamite Wars in Ireland from 1688-91.

    Trade and industry suffered as oppressive laws led to the departure of many families. Because of this Galway silver is rare and most surviving pieces were designed for religious use.  The c1730 mug by Mark Fallon is estimated at £12,000-15,000.

    UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £15,000

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    JACKIE KENNEDY’S LETTERS TO LORD HARLECH MAKE £100,000

    March 30th, 2017

    Personal letters from Jackie Kennedy made £100,000 at Bonhams sale of  The Contents of Glyn Cywarch – The Property of Lord Harlech in London.  The Kennedy-Harlech Papers – the heartfelt personal letters between Jackie Kennedy and David Ormsby Gore, Lord Harlech, sold in the room to a private buyer.  This was a white glove sale where every one of the 531 lots sold. The sale total was £2,599,038, more than two and a half times the pre-sale estimate.

    The collection included Mrs. Kennedy’s rejection letter to the 5th Baron Harlech, one of JFK’s most intimate confidantes.  He was British Ambassador to the US from 1961 to 1965 and he and JFK had been friends since their student days at the LSE.  The 18 letters reveal that when he asked her to marry him she responded that she saw him ‘like a brother’. They remained friends until his death in 1985. She penned the rejection letter five years after JFK’s death as she sailed on the yacht of Aristotle Onassis, the shipping magnate who became her second husband. Lord Harlech had recently lost his wife Sissy in a car crash and was said to have proposed to Jackie while they were on holiday together in February 1968.

    Other highlights included a newly discovered portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts, court painter to Elizabeth I. It sold for £269,000 against an estimate of £60,000-80,000. Painted in 1597 it portrays Ellen Maurice, a prominent Welsh heiress and Harlech ancestor, whose pearls and jewellery are worth the equivalent of one million pounds in today’s market. Two remarkable Elizabeth I joined oak three-tier buffets, circa 1580-1600, made £140,500 against an estimate of £35,000-45,000. A 1936 Rapier 10Hp Tourer, a rare British sports car, one of only 300 built sold for £31,500.  And Irish artist Daniel Quigley’s portrait of The Godolphin Arabian, one of three Eastern stallions from which all modern racehorses descend, made over five times its estimate, selling for £100,000.  The auction was to raise funds for the restoration of Glyn Cywarch (known as Glyn) which Jasset, 7th Lord Harlech inherited on the death of his father in February 2016.

    (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for Febraury 26, 2017)

    The Kennedy-Harlech Papers sold for £100,000.

    Marcus Gheeraerts. This Portrait of Ellen Maurice made £269,000. Her pearls and jewellery would be worth £1 million in today’s market.

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    STRONG DEMAND FOR BLACKSHAW AT JAMES ADAM

    March 30th, 2017

    Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016)
    Vase of Flowers

    There was strong demand for works from the studio of Basil Blackshaw at the James Adam sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin last night.  Nearly all 47 lots from the studio of a much loved artist who died last May attracted spirited bidding and many sold above estimate.  The top lot was his portrait of Clint Eastwood which sold for a hammer price of 22,000 over a top estimate of 15,000. In a catalogue note Eamonn Mallie how the artist loved “edge of town” men and “edge of society” people like travellers, horsey people, doogie men, drinkers and so on. Clint Eastwood played roles in which he was always battling against the odds. A seated nude made 11,000 over a top estimate of 7,000, Vase of Flowers made 9,500 over a top estimate of 4,000, Plane and Car made 8,000 on an estimate of 7,000-10,000 and The Wall made 7,500 at hammer over a top estimate of 5,000.

    The Talent by Jack B. Yeats made 80,000 at hammer,  Clare Island from Achill by Paul Henry made 35,000, The Startled Bird by Norah McGuinness sold for 28,000, The Struggle by Nano Reid made 8,000, La Parisienne by Grace Henry made 5,400, Woman Reading by Roderic O’Conor made 30,000, Girl in a Garden by Patrick Swift made 32,000 and Cu Chulainn by John Behan made 13,000.

    (See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for February 23 and March 24, 2017)

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    A PORTRAIT OF DORA MAAR AT CHRISTIE’S IN MAY

    March 30th, 2017

    Pablo Picasso, Femme assise, robe bleue UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $45,047,500

    Femme assise, robe bleue by Pablo Picasso will be a highlight at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale in New York on May 15.  Painted on Picasso’s birthday on October 25, 1939 it is a searing portrait of Picasso’s lover, Dora Maar. This was just after the beginning of World War II.  Filled with the unique character, distortions and tension that mark Picasso’s greatest portraits of Dora there is at the same time a tender sensuality in the organic, curvaceous forms of the face which provides some insight into their relationship. This picture was formerly owned by G. David Thompson, to whom the great curator and art historian Alfred H. Barr, Jr. referred as, ‘one of the great collectors of the art of our time. It is estimated at $35,000,000-50,000,000.

    Giovanna Bertazzoni, Deputy Chairman, Impressionist and Modern Art, remarked: “We are bringing Femme assise, robe bleue to the market at a time when the demand for Picasso’s portraits of one of his greatest subjects, Dora Maar, is at an all-time high. The canvas is a powerful example of Picasso’s creative imagination and the passion which Dora inspired in him.”

    Francis Outred, Chairman and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, EMERI said: “Femme assise, robe bleue is a timeless icon of artist and muse which speaks to collectors across the centuries and continents.  Coming from a major European collection, the picture holds within it an incredible story.  It originally belonged to Picasso’s dealer, Paul Rosenberg but was confiscated in 1940 soon after its creation.  Later in the War it was intended to be transported to Germany but was famously intercepted and captured by members of the French Resistance, an event immortalised, albeit in fictional form, in the 1966 movie The Train, starring Burt Lancaster and Jeanne Moreau. In real life, one of the people who helped to sabotage the National Socialists’ attempt to remove countless artworks from France towards the end of the war was in fact Alexandre Rosenberg. The son of Paul Rosenberg, he had enlisted with the Free French Forces after the invasion of France in 1940.  The painting was subsequently owned by the Pittsburgh steel magnate and legendary collector, George David Thompson, from whose collection many works now grace the walls of museums in the United States and Europe.  We fully expect the romance and power of this painting and its remarkable story to capture the hearts and minds of our global collectors of masterpieces from Old Masters to Contemporary, this May.”

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    A GREAT EXAMPLE OF EARLY MING PORCELAIN

    March 29th, 2017

    ONE of the greatest examples of early Ming porcelain in private hands will lead the Chinese works of art sale at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on April 5.

    The large bowl is decorated with fishes in a lotus pond and ranks among the finest pieces produced in the reign of Xuande Emperor. The lobed bowl is extremely rare and possibly unique.

    The sales is part of a series of eight Hong Kong spring auction at Sotheby’s. These sales will cover most of the classic fields, from Chinese furniture and early jade carvings to Song dynasty ceramics and Qing dynasty imperial works of art.

    The series of sales is particularly rich in its offerings of Ming porcelain.  Hong Kong spring sales will be held from April 1-5 with more than 3,500 lots estimated at around HK$2.5 billion.

    UPDATE:  It sold to an Asian private collector for US$29.5 million, more than double the expected price.

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