LATE LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED JAPANESE LACQUER AND EBONY COMMODE BY CLAUDE-CHARLES SAUNIER, c1765, THE JAPANESE LACQUER 17TH CENTURY
This Louis XV commode, almost certainly supplied to the duchesse de Mazarin for the château de Chilly-Mazarin, made $819,000 at Christie’s in New York. It was the top lot at the L’Art du Luxe: Masterpieces of French Furniture sales which realised $9.7 million. Other leading results included a Louis XV ormolu-mounted bois satine and Chinese lacquer bureau plat by Joseph Baumhauer, one of only two of its type known to exist, which made $604,800; a late Louis XV ormolu-mounted amaranth, tulipwood and parquetry commode supplied to the court banker Micault d’Harvelay in 1774, which made $693,000 and a rare pair of late Louis XV consoles which made $415,000. Bids came from around the globe including Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East, and almost 10 percent of bidders and buyers were new to the category.
A first edition from 1710 of Irish philosopher George Berkeley’s A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge sold for a hammer price of €13,000 at the opening day of Fonsie Mealy’s Christmas Rare Book and Collectors sale in Castlecomer today. The scarce volume contained in a worn cover had been estimated at €3,000-€4,000. The love letters of the poet Thomas Davis and a complete set of Cuala Press broadsides each made €6,500, a copy of The Aran Island signed by Synge and Yeats made €5,400 and a copy of Finnegan’s Wake signed by James Joyce made €3,600. The auction continues on December 12.
LOUISE KENNEDY – A CHANDELIER. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,700 AT HAMMER
This art deco stye cut crystal chandelier by Louise Kennedy for Tipperary Crystal is at de Veres Christmas Crackers auction which runs until December 12. It is tiered form with cut glass lustres and the estimate is €2,000-€4,000. The online only auction offers a selection ranging from Irish art to design furniture including art by Patrick Scott, Richard Kingston and Mark O’Neill and design pieces by Gianfranco Frattini, Verner Panton, Antonio Citterio, Fase and others. The catalogue is online.
Peter Curling – Around the Turn. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $31,200
This oil on canvas by the Irish artist Peter Curling is a feature lot at Sotheby’s Arcade sale in New York with an estimate of $15,000-$20,000. The Tipperary based Waterford born artist is particularly noted for his action paintings of horses, of which this work is a fine example, and he has shown in Saratoga and Kentucky. The Arcade sale, with 96 lots in total, runs from December 10-19.
Kenneth Webb RWA FRSA RUA (b.1927) – QUIET FOREST. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Quiet Forest by Kenneth Webb is lot 74 at Whyte’s Christmas art sale on December 11. The oil on canvas is estimated at €2,000-€3,000. The evening sale offers affordable art by a wide variety of artists including Jack Yeats, Louis le Brocquy, Norah McGuinness, Graham Knuttel, Kenneth Webb, Markey Robinson, Pauline Bewick and many more. The catalogue is online.
This sapphire and diamond cluster ring along with a five stone rose gold diamond ring will lead Hegarty’s online sale in Bandon on December 11. Each one is estimated at €3,000-€4,000. The sale offers a selection of antique furniture, silver, collectibles and art including The Country Bus by John Schwatschke (€600-€800) and Brittas Bay by John Morris (€900-€1,200). UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,500 AT HAMMER
An illustration from William Lewin. UPDATE: THIS MADE 30,000 AT HAMMER
The wise and slightly indignant looking old owl which graces the catalogue cover for Fonsie Mealy’s two day Christmas rare book and collectors auction next week offers a clue to something special within. The rarest of all English bird books, one of just 60 sets of the first edition of William Lewin’s The Birds of Great Britain with their Eggs, leads the sale.
Complete with 323 original watercolour illustrations by Lewin of birds and eggs in gouache some heightened with gum Arabic this outstanding work of ornithology is in seven volumes. The estimate for this very fine copy is €17,500-€25,000.
A c1885 copy of the Shrine of the Bell of St. Patrick. UPDATE: THIS MADE 9,500 AT HAMMER
Among the more unusual offerings is a c1885 copy of the Shrine for the Bell of St. Patrick. The original A c1885 copy of the Shrine of the Bell of St. Patrick at Fonsie Mealy.shrine from which this cast was taken – made to contain a bell reputedly owned by St. Patrick – dates to around 1100 and is in the National Museum of Ireland. There is a copy at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This one is estimated at €6,000-€8,000. In the 1860’s the South Kensington Museum (now the V and A) campaigned for copies of artefacts to be made so that knowledge could be spread widely and by 1867 no less than 15 European heads of state signed a convention for international exchange.
Fermoy escaped the very worst ravages of famine in Ireland, but it had a narrow escape. Among 1170 lots on offer in Castlecomer on December 11 and 12 are two manuscript books for the poor rate in Fermoy in 1847, when hunger was at a peak, and 1859.
A collecting book for the Poor Rate, Fermoy 1847. UPDATE: THIS MADE 950 AT HAMMER
The 1847 book is signed by William Cooke-Collis, chairman of the board of guardians and Roderick O’Flanagan, clerk of the union and others. In his book about the famine in North East Cork published in 1986 by Eigse Books the historian Edward Garner observes: “It will have to be said that, had the Fermoy Poor Law Union not possessed the Board it did, then it would have joined the ranks of Skibbereen and Bantry. Fermoy escaped by the skin of its teeth.” Lot 706 is estimated at €600-€800.
A 1939 copy of Finnegan’s Wake signed by James Joyce is estimated at €3,000-€4,000 and Eleven Poems signed by Seamus Heaney is estimated at €2,500-€3,500.
The Westport House copy of the 1789 sole edition of Surveys of the Harbours by William O’Brien Drury including Blacksod, Valentia, Bear Haven, Corke and Waterford is another prize lot. This one is estimated at €3,000-€4,000.
A pair of handcuffs said to have been used by Michael Collins. UPDATE: THESE MADE 1,600 AT HAMMER
Collectibles include a set of heavy steel handcuffs said to have been used by Michael Collins (€1,000-€1,500), a lady’s Blueshirt uniform (€2,000-€3,000) and a gold 1904 All Ireland hurling championship medal won by Tullaroan, Kilkenny (€4,000-€6,000).
There is an Irish library of fishing books, a private collection of illustrated and hand coloured volumes, the library of Nelson Bell of The Bell Gallery, Belfast and part one of the Dr. Phillip Murray collection of Seamus Heaney. There will be viewing in Castlecomer on December 9 and 10. The catalogue is online.
Aidan Foley will make a timely offering of two vintage doll’s houses in good condition at his online sale in Doneraile on the evenings of December 8 and 9. The two day sale will offer everything from a large cast iron famine pot to Victorian dining tables. Demand for the former is strong, not so much for the tables. There is an Irish longcase clock with enamel dial, art by Norman Teeling, Patrick Copperwhite, John Morris, Albert Hartland and others and a selection of collectibles. Among these are vinyl records, cigarette cards, music posters, stamps and books. The auction is on view in Doneraile from noon to 5 pm today and from 11 am to 3 pm on December 8. UPDATE: THIS MADE 30 AT HAMMER
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) Horsemen sold for €400,000
The top four lots at the James Adam sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin last night sold after the auction for a total of €1.3 million. Horsemen and He Reads a Book by Yeats each made a hammer price of €400,000. The other two Yeats’, The Window with a View of the Town and Willie Reilly sold for €250,000 and €100,000 respectively, while Orpen’s Old John’s Cottage sold for €250,000.
Two oils by Paul Henry were sold, Connemara Landscape made €75,000 at hammer and A Bog Road in Kerry made €60,000. Leo Whelan’s Cello Player made €20,000; Louis le Brocquy’s Portrait of Federico Garcia Lorca made €50,000 and Aloysius O’Kelly’s The Christening Party made €26,000. Cathedral by Edward Delaney sold for €24,000.
DIEGO GIACOMETTI (1902-1985) – CONSOLE PROMENADE DES AMIS
There was a new world record for Diego Giacometti at Christie’s in Paris today when his witty design console featuring a horse and three dogs meeting under a tree sold for €9.5 million. It was from the collection of Lady Mercia Harrison, widow of the actor Rex Harrison. Four works from her collection directly from the artist’s studio achieved €12.3 million. The top price marks an auction record for a piece of design in France in 2024 at a sale which saw solid results and totalled €19.4 million.
The first time Lady Mercia Harrison saw furniture by Diego Giacometti was at a cocktail party in Zurich. ‘They were so beautiful I started to cry,’ she says. ‘There was something so joyous about them.’ She begged her host for Giacometti’s telephone number, but was warned that he had a thick book of orders which he ignored, and was not interested in meeting collectors.
Undeterred, she phoned the artist. ‘I didn’t want to address him as “Monsieur”, so I called him “Maître”, which he thought hilarious, and I think it broke the ice.’ Even so, Giacometti rejected her invitation to lunch, so she got on a plane to Paris. ‘I rang the bell of his studio on Rue Hippolyte-Maindron and said: “I am Mercia Harrison, would you like to have lunch with me?” He was so surprised that he agreed.’ It was the start of an unlikely friendship between the furniture-maker and the wife of a world-famous British actor. The nonagenarian is still very much the art lover, with a keen grasp on the contemporary art world. She believes that her friendship with Giacometti was based on their mutual non-conformity.
