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    • CHURCHILL’S VICTORY WATCH AT SOTHEBY’S

    May 7th, 2015

    A unique Victory watch commissioned for Sir Winston Churchill – one of four created for the Allied Leaders after the Second World War – comes up at Sotheby’s on September 22.  The others were presented to Charles de Gaulle, Joseph Stalin, and Henry Truman. Estimated at £60,000–100,000 it features an enamel dial showing St. George slaying the dragon, with a trident as the hour hand.  ‘V’ for Victory is engraved on the back of case with a personalized dedication: “1939 – Prime Minister Winston Spencer Churchill – 1945”.

    Commissioned by a group of prominent Swiss citizens the timepiece was much treasured by Churchill. It was designed by Louis Cottier, who invented the world time mechanism, in collaboration with manufacturer Agassiz and Co. Cottier made the same complication for some of the most celebrated manufacturers like Patek Philippe, Rolex and Vacheron Constantin. This vintage and historic piece will be a highlight at Sotheby’s reintroduction of watch sales in London next September.

    UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £485,000

    Sir Winston Churchill’s unique and historically important yellow gold World time Victory watch, Agassiz and Louis Cottier, circa 1945. Copyright Sotheby’s.

    Sir Winston Churchill’s unique and historically important yellow gold World time Victory watch, Agassiz and Louis Cottier, circa 1945. Copyright Sotheby’s.  UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £485,000

    Sir Winston Churchill’s unique and historically important yellow gold World time Victory watch, Agassiz and Louis Cottier, circa 1945. Copyright Sotheby’s

    Sir Winston Churchill’s unique and historically important yellow gold World time Victory watch, Agassiz and Louis Cottier, circa 1945. Copyright Sotheby’s

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    TODAY IS THE CENTENARY OF THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA

    May 7th, 2015
    Lusitania.

    Lusitania.

    Today marks the centenary of the sinking of the Lusitania, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk off the coast of Cork on May 7, 1915.  This caused the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew.  There are commemorations of the loss of the Cunard Liner in various locations in County Cork today, including lifeboat stations and at Cobh, where many of the survivors were taken.  Cobh, then Queenstown, was an important transatlantic port and recovered bodies were brought ashore and buried in a mass grave here.  Lifeboats powered only by oarsmen set out for the site of the sinking eleven miles off the southern coast and within sight of the Old Head of Kinsale.  She had left New York for Liverpool on May 1, but sank within eighteen minutes of being torpedoed following a second, internal explosion.  Among those who died was Sir Hugh Lane, the art dealer, collector and gallery director. He  is best known for establishing Dublin’s Municipal Gallery of Modern Art – now the Hugh Lane – the first known public gallery of modern art in the world.

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    GIACOMETTI’S DEFINING GESTURE AT CHRISTIE’S

    May 7th, 2015

    Giacometti’s L’homme au doigt (Pointing Man) is set to become the most expensive sculpture ever sold at auction at Christie’s curated sale in New York on May 11.  It is widely recognized as one of the most important sculptural achievements of the Modern era. Giacometti conceived the work in 1947 and made just six casts of it plus one artist’s proof. It is estimated at $130 million.  Here is a video from Christie’s about the work.

    UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $141,285,000 TO BECOME THE MOST VALUABLE SCULPTURE EVER SOLD AT AUCTION

    (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for April 15, 2015).

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    VAN GOGH, MONET LEAD SOTHEBY’S $368 MILLION SALE

    May 6th, 2015
    Vincent van Gogh, L'Allee des Alyscamps

    Vincent van Gogh, L’Allee des Alyscamps

    Vincent van Gogh’s vibrant L’Allee des Alyscamps  made $66.3 million at Sotheby’s in New York last year. It was the top lot in an Impressionist and Modern evening art auction that brought in $368.3 million over a pre-sale high estimate of $351 million.  Five bidders competed for the work, which had been estimated at in excess of $40 million.  It was sold to an Asian private collector.  Three of the top five lots of the night went to Asia.

    Monet’s Nympheas (Water Lillies) from 1905 was the second highest lot of the evening. It was sold to an American private collector for $54 million.  Five works by Monet totalled $115.4 million.

    All eleven pieces from the estate of Chicago businessman and philanthropist Jerome H. Stone found buyers, amounting to a total of $57.8 million. Alberto Giacometti’s Femme de Venise VI – the tallest from his standing female nude series – was held in the Stone collection for more than 20 years and sold for $16.2 million.

    Pablo Picasso’s Femme au chignon dans un fauteuil, which had remained in the Goldwyn Collection since 1956, made $29.9 million.  It set a record for a portrait by Picasso of his lover Francoise Gilot.  It was purchased by a major figure in the Chinese film industry: Wang Zhongjun, Chairman and co-founder of entertainment giant Huayi Brothers Media Group. Wang Zhongjun said: “I first fell in love with the painting and then I fell in love with its story. The Goldwyn family is legendary in our industry and in this one work, I can see not only Pablo Picasso’s genius, but also Samuel Goldwyn Sr.’s creative vision.”

    (See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for March 19, April 13 and April 29, 2015).

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    AN ICONIC FLOWER PAINTING BY GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

    May 6th, 2015
    Georgia O'Keeffe - White Calla Lily.

    Georgia O’Keeffe – White Calla Lily.  UPDATE: IT MADE $8,968,000

    An iconic flower painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, White Calla Lily, will lead Sotheby’s  American art auction in New York on May 20.  the artist kept the work in her own collection until her death in 1986.

    Between 1918 and 1932 O’Keeffe executed over 200 flower paintings, but it was arguably in the calla lily that the artist found her ideal motif, one that provided the perfect synthesis of subject and form that now defines her most celebrated work. White Calla Lily was acquired by the present owner in 1994 from Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has not been shown in public since. It is estimated at $8-12 million.

    The sale will feature 21 works by Martin Johnson Heade, Maxfield Parrish, Childe Hassam and more from a private collection, four paintings by Milton Avery and four works on paper by John Singer Sargent.

    UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $8,968,000.  White Calla Lily follows the sale of Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 for $44.4 million in Sotheby’s previous sale of American Art (November 2014), which set the current auction record for O’Keeffe as well as for any female artist

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    TARRY FLYNN AND AN IRON AGE STONE HEAD AT WHYTE’S

    May 4th, 2015

    With everything from an Iron Age stone head to a copy of Tarry Flynn signed by Patrick Kavanagh Whyte’s sale of history and literature in Dublin on May 9 lives up to its name.  Tbe catalogue, which is online, lists 399 lots. Lot 385, Tarry Flynn, published by the Devlin Adair Company, New York, 1949 is estimated at 150-200. It is inscribed “with best wishes to whoever reads it”.  The Iron Age stone head, in granite, dates from 500 BC to 500 AD and has an estimate of 3,000-5,000.  A 1788 grant of a bounty of £100 signed by King George III  is estimated at 150-200 and a Shelmalier Cavalry, Co. Wexford cross belt plate has an estimate of 1,500-2,000.  There are military medals, militia badges, regimental badges, postcards, weapons, uniforms, and a collection of 1916 newspapers reporting on the Rising and its aftermath in an auction that is brimful of interest.

    An Irish Iron Age stone head (3,000-5,000)

    An Irish Iron Age stone head (3,000-5,000) UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    An inscription by Patrick Kavanagh on Tarry Flynn.

    An inscription by Patrick Kavanagh on Tarry Flynn.  UPDATE; THIS MADE 1,000 AT HAMMER

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    KATHLEEN CLARKE’S 1916 BRONZE MEDAL AT ADAMS

    May 3rd, 2015
    Kathleen Clarke with her 1916 Bronze Medal.

    Kathleen Clarke with her 1916 Bronze Medal. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    Kathleen Clarke’s 1916 bronze medal is the top lot at The History Sale at James Adam in Dublin on May 12. It is estimated at 25,000-35,000.  The  Limerick born widow of Tom Clarke, first signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, went on to become a TD, Senator and the first woman Lord Mayor of Dublin.

    Other lots include a 1662 edition of Robert Boyle’s New Experiments Physico-Mechanical with an appendix announcing the discovery of what came to be known as Boyle’s Law (600-800), a rare copy of Spensers The Faerie Queene London 1596 (3,000-5,000) books, treaties, trial reports, pamphlets, literature and a Michael Collins memorial issue of An Saorstat dated August 29, 1922.  The sale, in two sessions, will include a collection of rare early Irish maps and sea charts.

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    FLAMING JUNE UNDER THE HAMMER IN JULY

    May 3rd, 2015
    FREDERIC, LORD LEIGHTON, P.R.A., R.W.S 1830-1896 STUDY FOR FLAMING JUNE Coiurtesy Sotheby's

    FREDERIC, LORD LEIGHTON, P.R.A., R.W.S
    1830-1896
    STUDY FOR FLAMING JUNE Coiurtesy Sotheby’s

    The only known head study for one of the most famous masterpieces of the nineteenth century has re-emerged 120 years after it was last reproduced in an art magazine in 1895. The important rediscovery of pencil and white chalk study for Frederic, Lord Leighton’s Flaming June provides the missing link in the preparatory work for the painting that has become known as ‘The Mona Lisa of the Southern Hemisphere’.  It is from the collection of Mary, Duchess of Roxburghe.

    The work was found hanging discreetly on a bedroom wall at West Horsley Place, her quintessentially English red-brick sixteenth-century mansion and 400-acre Surrey estate.  Contents from this extraordinary home – frozen in time – will be offered at Sotheby’s in London on May 27 and 28.  The drawing comes up at a separate sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist art in London on July 15.  It is estimated at £40,000-60,000. Pictures and objects brought together by the Crewe family, one of Britain’s greatest aristocratic families, were consolidated at West Horsley Place from numerous great houses across Britain. It is likely that the Leighton drawing was purchased from the artist’s studio after his death.  

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    RARE NEWSREEL FOOTAGE OF IRELAND’S WAR OF INDEPENDENCE AT WHYTE’S

    May 2nd, 2015

    Rare newsreel footage of Ireland’s War of Independence comes up at Whyte’s auction of History and Literature in Dublin on May 9.   Lot 200 is 300 minutes of restored newsreel film from 1916 to 1922 from the Easter Rising to the funeral of Michael Collins, much of it unpublished. A total of 12 cans of safety film and one of nitrate is estimated at 150,000-180,000.  It was commission by Dublin based film distributor Jacob Baum, who sold some of it to newsreel companies. But much remained unpublished.

    Subjects include the aftermath of the Rising, the funeral of Thomas Ashe, the burning of towns and villages by the Black and Tans, the aftermath of Bloody Sunday in Croke Park, the killing of Sean Treacy in Talbot St., Dublin, sectarian murders and burnings in Belfast and Derry, the 1922 elections including Michael Collins in Cork and civil war footage.

    The auction will feature antiquities, artifact, manuscripts, documents, printed ephemera, maps, prints, photographs, postcards, medals, militaria, weapons and antiquarian books.  UPDATE: These were bid up to 90,000 at which point they were withdrawn.

    Stills taken from Ireland's War of Independence newsreels at Whyte's

    Stills taken from Ireland’s War of Independence newsreels at Whyte’s

    Stills taken from Ireland's War of Independence newsreels at Whyte's

    Stills taken from Ireland’s War of Independence newsreels at Whyte’s

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    RUBENS, TENIERS AND GUARDI FROM RUSSBOROUGH HOUSE AT CHRISTIE’S

    May 1st, 2015
    Russborough House.

    Russborough House.

    Works of art by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, David Teniers the Younger and Francesco Guardi are among eight paintings from Russborough House to be sold at Christie’s in London in July.  They are being sold by The Alfred Beit Foundation to safeguard the long term future of Russborough in Co. Wicklow.

    Two magnificent panels by Rubens – Head of a Bearded Man (£2-3 million) and Venus and Jupiter (£1.2-1.8 million) – lead the Old Masters to be offered. A Kermesse (religious festival) by David Teniers the Younger dating to the 1640’s is estimated at £1.2-1.8 million, Adoration of the Shepherds by Adriaen van Ostade is estimated at £600,000-800,000 and a pair of Venetian views by Franceso Guardi is estimated at £300,000-500,000.  They come up at Christie’s Old Master evening auction in London on July 9 and will be exhibited in New York, Hong Kong and London prior to the sale.

    Three further lots to be sold are Francois Boucher’s Aurore et Amour tenant une torche (£30,000-50,000) at the Old Master Drawings auction on July 7.  Two views of Yew Court, Scalby, Scarborough by John Atkinson Grimshaw will come up at the sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist Art on June 16. They are estimated at £50,000-70,000 each.

    Built almost 300 years ago Russborough is in continuing need of restoration and improvements to the main house, the wings, the colonnades, outbuildings, estate grounds, walkways, water features and visitor facilities. Acquired in 1952 by Sir Alfred Beit it was the scene of four major art robberies. In 1986 Sir Alfred and Lady Beit made a gift of many of the most celebrated works from their world famous art collection to the National Gallery of Ireland.  These included masterpieces by Vermeer, Gabriel Metsu, Jacob van Ruisdael, Goya and Gainsborough, all now house in the Beit Wing at the gallery.
    Following the four notorious robberies in the 1970’s, ’80’s and early 2000’s six of the eight lots being auctioned have not been in view or even in storage at the house for many years. Judith Woodworth, chair of the Alfred Beit Foundation, said the endowment fund to be established with the proceeds is an absolute necessity.  The roofs, stonework, electrical and heating systems all need attention, the interiors need refurbishment and conservation.
    UPDATE:  Christie’s formally withdrew the works following a request from the Beit Foundation for a postponement.
    Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Venus and Jupiter (£1.2-1.8 million) © Christie’s Images Limited 2015

    Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
    Venus and Jupiter (£1.2-1.8 million) © Christie’s Images Limited 2015

    Francesco Guardi (1712-1793). One of a pair of Venetian views: >The Piazza San Marco looking towards the Basilica © Christie’s Images Limited 2015

    Francesco Guardi (1712-1793). One of a pair of Venetian views:
    >The Piazza San Marco looking towards the Basilica © Christie’s Images Limited 2015

    Sir Peter Paul Rubens - Portrait of a Bearded Man (£2-3 million) © Christie’s Images Limited 201

    Sir Peter Paul Rubens – Portrait of a Bearded Man (£2-3 million) © Christie’s Images Limited 2015

    David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) - A village inn with peasants dancing and merry making to the music of a hurdy-gurdy (£1.2-1.8 million) © Christie’s Images Limited 2015

    David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) – A village inn with peasants dancing and merry making to the music of a hurdy-gurdy (£1.2-1.8 million) © Christie’s Images Limited 2015

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