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The Lock by John Constable (1776-1837), courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2012. (Click on image to enlarge).  UPDATE: IT MADE £22,441,250.

A celebrated Constable masterpiece is expected to realise more than £20 million at Christie’s sale of Old Master and British Paintings in London on July 3.  The Lock by John Constable (1776-1837) is one of six paintings that make up the artist’s most celebrated series of large scale works which also includes The Hay Wain, now in The National Gallery, London.  From the private collection of  Baroness Carmen Thyssen Bornemisza it is the last to remain in private hands.  Sold only once since it was acquired from the artist it became the most valuable British painting ever sold when bought at auction for £10.8 million in 1990. It was originally owned by the celebrated collector James Morrison (1789-1857) and remained in the Morrison family until sold in 1990.

The Lock was finished in 1824, one of the most significant years in Constable’s career, which saw The Hay Wain exhibited at the Paris Salon and King Charles X of France award him a gold medal. Constable’s success in France has been seen by many art historians as having significantly influenced the course of the history of art; his intense observation of nature inspired French artists in a movement of landscape painting that would find its fullest expression half-a-century later in the work of the Impressionists.

Jussi Pylkkänen, President of Christie’s Europe, Middle East, Russia and India anticipates that it will attract bidding from museums and collectors from all over the world.  It is estimated at £20-25 million.

UPDATE: IT MADE £22,441,250.

Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Study for Self-Portrait, courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2012. (Click on image to enlarge).  UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £21,545,250

A study for a self portrait by Francis Bacon is a highlight of Christie’s auction on Post War and Contemporary art on June 27.  Painted in 1964 the work marries the artist’s face to the figure and friend of fellow painter Lucian Freud.

It represents one of only twelve, floor-length self-portraits ever to be realised by Francis Bacon, four of which are now held in international museum collections.

Christie’s Francis Outred  said that this is the only full length self portrait known to combine the artist’s physiognomy with the physique of Freud, derived from a series of celebrated photographs taken by John Deakin in the 1960s. “It is a rare painting from the height of Bacon and Freud’s relationship, paying tribute to the creative and emotional proximity both felt for a time. Part of the same artistic circle, the artists deeply impacted one another, both in terms of personality and practice”.

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £21,545,250

John Hogan (1800-1858), bust of Francis Sylvester Mahony (Fr. Prout). Click to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS MADE 8,500.

A marble portrait bust of Fr. Prout by Ireland’s most distinguished neo-classical sculptor John Hogan is among a great variety of treasures at Adams sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on May 30. Francis Sylvester Mahony (1804-1866) wrote under the pseudonym Fr. Prout and composed The Bells of Shandon, long included in The Oxford Book of English Verse.  Elizabeth Barret Browning, who knew him in Rome, described Mahony as:  “a most accomplished scholar and vibrating all over with learned associations and vivid combinations of fancy and experience – having seen all the ends of the earth and the men thereof, and possessing the art of talk and quotation to an amusing degree”.  It is estimated at 4,000-6,000.

The auction of 148 lots includes major works by Louis le Broquy and William John Leech and a selection by distinguished Irish painters and sculptors including Paul Henry, Jack B. Yeats, Frank McKelvey, William Conor, Walter Osborne, Aloysius O’Kelly, Mainie Jellett, J.H. Craig, Maurice Wilks, Patrick Scott, Basil Blackshaw, Tony O’Malley, Rowan Gillespie, John Behan and  F.E. MacWilliam.

See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for May 6 and May 8

Flying Pheasant by Archibald Thorburn. (Click on image to enlarge).

A watercolour at auction next month links fairly directly to the carnage of the Battle of the Somme.  It was once owned by the Irish politician who was the first person to suggest holding a period of silence to commemorate dead soldiers from the First World War.  Flying Pheasant by the Scottish ornithological artist Archibald Thorburn comes up at Bonhams in Edinburgh on June 21.

The painting was owned by Sir Crawford McCullagh, the prominent Ulster politician.  As Lord Mayor of Belfast from 1914-17 he called for a five minute silence for the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division who had died in their thousands at the Battle of Somme on July 1, 1916.  The more familiar Two Minute Silence was first held at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1919 so that, in the worlds of George V “in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead”.

Flying Pheasant is estimated at £20,000-30,000

Sir John Lavery’s portrait of Aida, a Moorish maid sold for £181,250 to become the top Irish lot at Christie’s British and Irish art sale in London.  An image of Samuel Beckett by Louis le Brocquy made £85,250 over an estimate of £40,000-60,000.  Jack Yeats’ An old stone in a Field and Paul Henry’s Turf Stacks each made £55,250.

The top lot was L.S. Lowry’s Industrial Landscape; Stockport Viaduct, 1958, which realised £1,273,250. There were good prices too for Scottish Colourists and British Pop Art. The evening sale, including buyer’s premium, brought in £9,194,650, the day sale brought in £3,286,325.  The overall total was £12,480,975.

See post on antiquesandartireland.com for Saturday, April 14.

Louis Le Brocquy, H.R.H.A. (1916-2012) Image of Samuel Beckett sold for £85,250.

Paul Henry, R.H.A. (1876-1958) Turf Stacks sold for £55,250.

Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A. (1871-1957) An old Stone in a Field sold for £55,250.

Andy Warhol's portrait of Brigitte Bardot made £3,009,250. (Click on image to enlarge).

Andy Warhol's Pink Fright Wig made £5,361,250. (Click on image to enlarge).

One of Andy Warhol’s last self-portraits almost doubled its estimate to sell for £5,361,250 at Sotheby’s in London on May 22. It was the top lot in the evening auction of the Gunter Sachs Collection which also doubled its pre-sale estimate and brought in a whopping £35,628,250. Warhol’s Self Portrait (Fright Wig) dates from 1986.

There was a record for a work on paper by Warhol when The Kiss (Bela Lugosi) from 1964 sold for £3,177,250. An icon of the Sach’s collection, a Warhol portrait of Brigitte Bardot made £3,009,250. Three hallmark Pop Art works of 1960’s mannequin furniture by Allen Jones (a table, chair and hat-stand) made £2,587,750 against a combined estimate of £90,000-£120,000. Buyers from Asia, Europe, Russia and the US competed in an auction where ten lots sold for over £1 million and 16 lots made over $1 million.

The Gunter Sachs Collection continued with a day sale on May 23 and the combined total for the two days of sale amounted to £41,445,313.

See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for May 14 and March 12, 2012.