VICTORIAN WALNUT TULIPWOOD AND MARQUETRY INLAID CREDENZA. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This fine Victorian credenza comes up on day one of the James Adam annual Country House Collections sale at Townley Hall on October 14. Bidding is now open for day one of the sale, a timed online auction of 245 lots. The credenza is lot number 237 and is estimated at €3,000-€5,000. There will be a live auction with 460 lots at St. Stephen’s Green on the following day. Viewing gets underway at Townley Hall near Drogheda on October 12. The carefully curated sale is drawn from country houses right around Ireland and the vast majority of lots have been sourced from Irish private collections. This annual auction has become one of the highlights of the antique and fine arts calendar in Ireland.
Lucian Freud – Ria, Naked Portrait. Painted in 2006-2007. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £11,810,000
A seminal work by Lucian Freud – Ria, Naked Portrait – with an estimate of £10 million – £15 million is a highlight at Christie’s 20th/21st century evening sale in London on October 9 during Frieze Week. The painting is deeply rooted in the art historical tradition of the reclining female nude, drawing from a lineage that includes Giorgione, Titian, and Velázquez, and finds a modern culmination in Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), a work that Lucian Freud greatly admired.
The sitter, Ria Kirby, was an art handler whom Freud initially met at the Victoria & Albert Museum during his joint exhibition with Frank Auerbach in 2006. Ria went on to become one of his most significant sitters during the final decade of his life, with sessions totalling an intense 2,400 hours over the course of 16 months. Ria, Naked Portrait was completed in 2007 and it is the only portrait of Ria the artist realised. The painting is offered at auction for the first time.
YANNY PETTERS – Fieldwork with Mainie and Albrecht
Dublin Gallery Weekend returns for its second year with an ambitious programme of contemporary art exhibitions November 7-10. Eleven leading commercial galleries will present exhibitions by Irish and international artists. Sean Rainbird, former director of the National Gallery of Ireland, will once again gather together a panel of national and global experts in a day-long conference of talks with the theme of realising the potential of the Irish visual arts sector.
Egyptian feminist Nil Yalter, who won a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2024 Venice Biennale is showing at Green On Red Gallery. One of Ireland’s most celebrated living sculptors, John Behan, will present new work in bronze at Solomon Gallery, while Irish contemporary artist Nevan Lahart presents new work at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery. Hillsboro Fine Art will present its first solo exhibition by the renowned Irish painter Eithne Jordan, while Kerlin Gallery presents the first exhibition in Ireland by Justin Fitzpatrick, a young Dubliner based in France and with a growing international reputation.
Fieldwork with Mainie and Albrecht, pictured here, is a new body of work by Yanny Petters primarily about wild Irish habitats at Olivier Cornet Gallery from October 6 to November 10.
BREON O’CASEY (1928-2011) – SEATED FIGURE (1990). UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,800 AT HAMMER
This unique brass figure by Breon O’Casey comes up as lot number 83 at Whyte’s sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin this evening. The estimate is €2,000-€3,000. A prominent member of the St. Ives School he was a versatile jewellery, weaver, painter and sculptor. O’Casey was a son of the Irish playwright Sean O’Casey. Included in the sale are major works by Jack Butler Yeats, Paul Henry, Grace Henry, William Orpen, Seán Keating, Mildred Anne Butler, William Percy French, William Conor, Mary Swanzy, Colin Middleton, Daniel O’Neill, Nano Reid, Patrick Collins, Camille Souter, Norah McGuinness, Patrick Hennessy, Donald Teskey, Rowan Gillespie, Anthony Scott, Liam O’Neill, Rita Duffy and many more.
A late 17th/early 18th century Aubusson silk and wool tapestry UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
An antique Aubusson tapestry or an Irish 18th carved giltwood mirror? The choice is yours at Victor Mee’s Escape from the Chateau sale with more than 1,900 lots on October 1, 2, 3 and 4 from 6.30 pm each day. The primary vendor is an Irish antique dealer who is moving home from his chateau in the Charente region.
With an estimate of €6,000-€12,000 the tapestry is one of the top lots from his collection which features antique, interior and decorative lots including an Irish mahogany side table (€4,000-€6,000), a Sheraton four poster bed (€3,000-€6,000), an 18th century Dublin pier mirror, a c1765 giltwood mirror with C scroll carving (€3,000-€6,000 each), Middle Eastern decorative items including coffee tables, lanterns, chargers and coffee pots (€50 to €100) and even a 19th century Dublin pawnbrokers sign from Queen St. (€600-€1,200). The auction is on view in Co. Cavan and the catalogue is online.
Irish 18th century carved giltwood pier mirror. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,900 AT HAMMER
Red Figure, 1957 by Deborah Brown. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,000 AT HAMMER
A timed auction of the Deborah Brown collection is underway at Adams until October 1. This is a studio collection of her work with reasonable estimates along with art by friends and contemporaries including Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone, James Humbert Craig, Alice Berger Hammerschlag, William Scott and Basil Blackshaw whose art she admired.
Largely unknown at home Deborah Brown, who died in her mid ’90’s last year, was an artist of international repute who evolved into abstraction in the 1950’s and exhibited at the New Vision Centre gallery in London, the Free Painters Group and the Arnolfini in Bristol. A retrospective at the Ulster Museum and the Hugh Lane Gallery was held in 1982 and another at the F E McWilliam gallery in 2012-13.
JACK B YEATS – The Top of the Tide UPDATE: THIS MADE 210,000 AT HAMMER
The two figures depicted by Yeats in The Top of the Tide (1955) seem to contemplate something way out there and way out of reach. The men – one suggestive of the 18th century – are made to seem partly transparent In a vibrant landscape of blues and yellows.
The context of the painting made by Yeats in his ’80’s is the fragility of human existence. The artist declared it ready for exhibition in February 1956 and died a year later in March 1957. In a catalogue note Dr. Roisin Kennedy quotes Beckett on Yeats: “One does not realise how still his pictures are till one looks at others, almost petrified, a sudden suspension of the performance, of the convention of sympathy and antipathy, meeting and parting, joy and sorrow”.
The Top of the Tide will lead Whyte’s sale of Important Irish Art at Freemason’s Hall, Molesworth St., Dublin on the evening of September 30 with an estimate of €250,000-€350,000.
UPDATE: The sale grossed over €1.3 million
PAUL HENRY – The Stony Fields of Kerry UPDATE: THIS MADE 180,000 AT HAMMER
A trio of works by Paul Henry is headed by The Stony Fields of Kerry (€150,000-€200,000) thought to have been painted after a late summer holiday in Glenbeigh in 1934. Killary Bay c1919-1920 and Keel Bay, Achill c1910-1919 by Henry are estimated respectively at €70,000-€90,000 and €60,000-€80,000.
Among a selection of major works in this sale of 149 lots is Water Party, Kilmurry 1891-92 by Mildred Anne Butler (€15,000-€20,000) exhibited at the Watercolour Society of Ireland in 1893. An exhibition of work by the artist – where Butler is lauded as one of Ireland’s first professional women artists – is on view at the National Gallery of Ireland until next January.
There is art by Grace Henry, William Orpen, Sean Keating, Percy French, William Conor, Mary Swanzy, Colin Middleton, Dan O’Neill, Nano Reid, Norah McGuinness, Patrick Hennessy, Donald Teskey, Rowan Gillespie, Rita Duffy in a sale which is on view all weekend and on Monday at Whyte’s in Dublin.
MILDRED ANNE BUTLER – Water Party, Kilmurry. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
A collection of items from McGill’s Bar at Powerscourt Hotel Resort and Spa will feature at Aidan Foley’s online sale in Limerick next Tuesday and Wednesday. The sale will be on view at Cleeve’s warehouse in Limerick on September 28, 29 and 30 and the catalogue is online. Lot 731 (pictured here) is the entrance to McGill’s Bar including doors and side cabinets. Lot 340 is a gigantic model of The Yeti, the ape like creature reputed to inhabit the Himalayas and among 847 lots there are vintage collectibles, memorabilia, decor, lighting and furniture.
THIS rare and highly important 18th century diamond jewel weighing approximately 300 carats will highlight Sotheby’s Royal and Noble sale in Geneva on November 11. Though its precise origin story is not recorded, such an important and historic antique jewel could only have been created for royalty or a high-ranking aristocrat at one of the glittering courts of the ancient régime – most the French or English court. It is thought that some of the diamonds featured in this jewel may have come from the famous necklace linked to what became the scandal of the “Affair of the Necklace” which contributed to the advent of the French revolution and eventually Marie-Antoinette’s death. It has emerged from a private Asian collection and is making a first public appearance in 50 years. It belonged to the Marquesses of Anglesey, a leading Anglo-Welsh aristocratic family with close ties to the British Royal family in the early 20th century. In 1937, Marjorie Paget, Marchioness of Anglesey (eldest daughter of Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland), wore the jewel to the coronation of King George VI, together with the famous Anglesey tiara. She was immortalised wearing her coronation robes and diamond jewel by the renowned society photographer Cecil Beaton. In 1953, her daughter-in-law attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II wearing the same ensemble of heirloom jewels. The seventh Marquess of Anglesey parted with the piece around the 1960s.
The late 18th century jewel is a technically stunning piece of jewellery composed of three rows of diamonds finished with a diamond tassel at each end. Jewels of this era were characterised by their opulence and versatility of use: one piece could be worn as a necklace or sewn onto a piece of clothing as an ornament. In this case the jewel – also referred to as “négligé” – can be worn around the neck with the tassels hanging or tied in a simple knot. All diamonds are in an old mine brilliant cut, weighing between one and one and half carats each. The estimate is 1,600,000 – 2,400,000 CHF / $1,800,000 – 2,800,000.
Portrait of Marjorie Paget, Lady Anglesey, wearing the 18th century jewel and the Anglesey Tiara for the coronation of King George VI by Cecil Beaton, 1937 courtesy of Condé Nast Archive
This very rare Irish mether is a highlight at Bonhams Vernacular Furniture, Folk and Naïve Art and Textiles sale online from October 4-22. Irish methers, or ‘maeddhers’, are rare and this example is thought to be from the 14th or 15th century, crafted from willow. It is illustrated in Owen Evan-Thomas’ book ‘Domestic Utensils of Wood’ and was once a part of the author’s own private collection which he amassed over 40 years, although in this time he rarely came across any similar examples. The mether would have been used during a celebration or ceremony, when ‘medd’ or ‘mead’ would be consumed from a corner of the vessel’s quadrangular rim, before being passed hand-to-hand using its large and striking handles. From a private collection in Penrith, Cumbria it is estimated at £3,000-35,000. It will be on view at Bonhams, Knightsbridge from October 20-22.
