Mainie Jellett (1897-1944) – Study for Fra Angelico/Announciation
This gouache and watercolour on card by Mainie Jellett is lot 18 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish art online auction which runs until Monday, July 20. Study for Fra Angelico/Announciation is signed and dated 1927. It was once in the collection of artist Genevieve de Cissey. The estimate is €5,000-€7,000. The work was exhibited in the acclaimed exhibition The Art of Friendship: Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone at the National Gallery of Ireland in 2025.
This oil on canvas by Liam O’Neill is at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Irish art which runs until July 20. Turning the Sod is estimated at €10,000-€15,000. The auction offers 255 lots including work by Donald Teskey, John Behan, Dorothy Cross, William Crozier, George Campbell, Tim Goulding, Martin Finnin, Kaws, Louis le Brocquy, Arthur Maderson, Charles Tyrrell and John Shinnors. The catalogue is online.
The Mayor Gallery, London shows Minding his own Business by Patrick O’Reilly at Treasure House.
From Old Master paintings, antiquities, sculpture and rare books to a prehistoric woolly mammoth head and Galileo’s first drawing of the moon the incredible London season now in full swing continues on its merry way.
London’s flagship Treasure House Fair continues at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea this weekend, it is Classic Week at Christie’s and Sotheby’s offerings next week include Scene in Braemar by Sir Edwin Landseer, a little known sister painting to The Monarch of the Glen.
In Ireland summer online sales of much more affordable art will be held at Whyte’s on Monday June 29 and Morgan O’Driscoll on Tuesday June 30. It all adds up to a very healthy market for art and collectibles.
The trove of masterpieces at Treasure House includes a 25,000 year old woolly mammoth head, drawings by Gallileo, a luxurious dog house made for Marie Antoinette’s favourite pet, a pair of commodes owned by Madame du Pompadour, jewels from the era of Henry VIII and Shakespeare, an exhibition of contemporary British women artists, a show of British Surrealism and a sculpture walk with monumental artworks by Eduardo Paolozzi, Elizabeth Frink, Ron Arad, Nicola Anthony and Patrick O’Reilly.
Sir Thomas Lawrence – Portrait of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE £9,670,000 A NEW WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
Christie’s has an estimate of £8 million – £12 million (€9.22 million – €13.83 million) on Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. In this portrait painted after Wellington’s defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo the artist succeeded in penetrating Wellington’s aura of heroism to capture the essence of the man. The Old Master’s sale takes place next Tuesday evening (June 30). Sales during Classic Week feature art from antiquity to the 21st century.
Sir Edwin Landseer – Scene in Braemar at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £5,946,000 A NEW AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
The estimate for Landseer’s Scene at Braemar at Sotheby’s on the following evening (July 1) is £3 million – £4 million (€3.46 million – €4.61 million). Painted in 1857 the nearly nine foot canvas is a darker sister painting to the iconic and renowned Monarch of the Glen.
Rosaleen Brigid Ganly (1909-2002) – Stargazer Lily at Whyte’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE 150 AT HAMMER
There is a good selection of affordable art at Whyte’s summer online art auction which gets underway at 6 pm next Monday (June 29). The catalogue features 241 lots and includes work by Jack Butler Yeats, Walter Osborne, Estella Solomons, Eva Hamilton, Harry Kernoff, Dan O’Neill, Henry Moore, James Brohan, Liam Treacy, Banksy, Nelson Mandela, Brigid Ganly and many more artists. The most expensively estimated lots are Fishing Boats by James Brohan an d Self Portrait by Eva Hamilton, each estimated at €2,500-€3,500. The Tennis Court, a signed lithograph by Nelson Mandela from his Robben Island series, is estimated at €2,000-€3,000.
Majella O’Neill Collins (b.1964) – Returning home to Sherkin Island at Morgan O’Driscoll. UPDATE: THIS MADE €2,000 AT HAMMER
Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall online sale of affordable art is on view in Skibbereen next Monday and Tuesday. It gets underway at 6.30 pm on Tuesday (June 30) and the catalogue is online. An oil on board of Montpellier by Arthur Maderson carries the highest estimate of €4,000-€6,000. There is art by a wide variety of artists including William Crozier, Paul Henry, Damien Hirst, Robert Ballagh, Shepard Fairey, Andy Warhol, Jack B Yeats, Jim Sheehy, George Campbell and John Behan.
Markey Robinson (1918-1999) – Achill Sound. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,500 AT HAMMER
Achill Sound, a gouache on board by Markey Robinson, is lot 6 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall art auctions which runs to 6.30 pm on June 8. The estimate is €1,000-1,500. More than 450 affordable lots of art are on the catalogue. There are etchings by popular artists like Sean Scully, Donald Teskey and William Crozier, oils by Norman McCaig, Brian Ballard, Kenneth Webb and Graham Knuttel, drawings by Tony O’Malley, Mainie Jellett and John Butler Yeats and sculpture by Siobhan Bulfin and Michael Foley among the wide selection on offer. The auction kicks off with a pastel on paper by John Shinnors, Day at the Circus II and the catalogue is online.
Harry Kernoff – At the Railway Station UPDATE: THIS MADE €20,000 AT HAMMER
At the Railway Station by Harry Kernoff and Mercury’s Orbit by Mary Swanzy are two utterly different 1920’s paintings at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish art online auction which runs until the evening of June 2. The young Kernoff’s theme is downright Victorian, Swanzy’s semi abstract study demonstrates her skillful grasp of the Modernist movement. At 21 Kernoff became the first night student at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art to win the Taylor scholarship with this watercolour featuring a woman and child and an older woman on the spiral staircase of a railway station. It depicts popular Victorian and Edwardian themes of childhood, adulthood and old age.
Mercury’s Orbit by Swanzy stands in sharp contrast, depicting as it does the eccentric route of a planet which orbits the sun every 88 days and rotates on its axis every 59 days. Einstein explained it all with his Theory of Relativity and the painting is inspired by advances in astronomy and physics in the 20th century. There are 239 lots in a sale with an estimate range of €25- €40,0000. The catalogue is online.
Mary Swanzy – Mercury’s Orbit UPDATE: THIS MADE €42,000 AT HAMMER
Tim Goulding (b.1945) – Hills of Fire (1998). UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,400 AT HAMMER
This oil on canvas by Tim Goulding, whose paintings are inspired by nature, is lot 12 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current off the wall online art auction which runs until April 27. For many years the artist, who is based in west Cork, has worked on series, often lasting for three or four years. This work from his mountain fire series is estimated at €600-€900.
HERMES KELLY II RETOURNE 25. UPDATE: THIS MADE €22,000 at hammer
This Hermes Kelly handbag, in the Retourne style, in Black Cheri calfskin leather with gold hardware is lot 20 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s auction of fine jewellery and watches, which runs until the evening of April 22. From the 2025 collection it is new and unworn and estimated at €10,000-€15,000. There are 157 lots on the catalogue for this online auction. The most expensively estimated – at €40,000-€60,000 – is a pair of Art Deco ruby and diamond ear pendants set with six cabochon rubies weighing approximately 17 carats.
RUBY AND DIAMOND EAR PENDANTS. UPDATE: THESE MADE €38,000 at hammer
In the early 1960’s Andy Warhol pioneered a new kind of celebrity portraiture with subjects like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor. The Ingrid Bergman portfolio revisited the series in the 1980’s. When Warhol was commissioned by Galerie Borjeson in Malmo, Sweden to portray Bergman he made a suite of three silkscreen portraits and one trial proof of the Academy Award winning actress and one of Sweden’s most celebrated film icons. It was completed in 1983, one year after the death of Bergman. Two works from the series, Herself and The Nun, each number 55 from an edition of 250, are at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International online art auction on the evening of April 21, each estimated at €30,000-€50,000. The auction is on view until April 20 at the RDS. Pictured here is Herself, from: Three Portraits of Ingrid Bergman (1983).
William Scott – Still Life on White with Beans UPDATE: THIS MADE 150,000 AT HAMMER
Green beans on a white plate inspired William Scott in 1978, a red pumpkin was all world renowned Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama needed. These are revolutionary artworks while the subject of a 1922 drawing by Hazel Lavery is a revolutionary. Her pencil portrait of Michael Collins was made in May of 1922, just a few months before his assassination at Beal na mBlath.
All these works feature at Morgan O’Driscoll’s sale of Irish and International Art on April 21 on view in Skibbereen until April 13 and at the RDS in Dublin from April 17-20. The catalogue cover lot is William Scott’s Still Life on White with Beans (€120,000-€180,000). In a note about the painting Peter Murray remarks that since the 1930’s, perhaps more than any other Irish artist of the 20th century apart from Jack Yeats, Scott’s work has been exhibited worldwide.
Still Life on White with Beans contains the essential elements of abstraction for which he became renowned, Murray writes: “The square format suited his search for simplicity. Colour has been reduced to the simple monochrome tones of grey, white and green”. First shown at Gallery Moos in Toronto in 1978 the oil on canvas measures 24″ x 24″.
There are two other works by William Scott in the auction, Pear and Grapes and Table Top Still Life. Each gouache of paper dates to 1975 and each is estimated at €15,000-€25,000.
Yayoi Kusama – Red Pumpkins. UPDATE: THIS MADE 850 AT HAMMER
Kusama’s Red Pumpkin is a playful painted cast resin piece published by Benesse Holdings, Naoshima, Japan. Stamped on the base and in a box it is estimated at €400-€600.
Hazel Lavery is best known nowadays as the subject of numerous portraits painted by her husband John Lavery. She too was a talented artist who had studied in America and France. It is not known when the Lavery’s first met Michael Collins, who moved to London in 1906. After the Easter Rising the Lavery’s used their social connections and friendship with Collins to facilitate negotiations between Ireland and Britain. Hazel Lavery made this head and shoulders portrait with Collins in three quarter profile when he was leading the Irish delegation negotiating the Treaty. It is signed and dated May 1922.
Hazel Lavery – Portrait of Michael Collins (1922) UPDATE: THIS MADE 10,000 AT HAMMER
The sale offers 156 lots of great variety. Mrs. Harrington’s Horses by Peter Curling (€7,000-€10,000) shows six chestnut racehorses from Jessica Harrington’s Commonstown Stud near Moone in Co. Kildare being exercised. The focus of Still Life (1984) by William Crozier (€3,000-€5,000) is flowers in a vase against an arresting blue and yellow background. Cottages in a Landscape by Paul Henry (€25,000-€35,000) is a small, spirited oil on panel probably painted on Achill and P2.05 (2005) by Charles Tyrrell (€1,000-€1,500) is an abstract rectangular oil on aluminium.
There is a selection of sculpture by John Behan, Patrick O’Reilly, Rowan Gillespie, Ana Duncan, Imogen Stuart and others. Many of Ireland’s favourite painters including artists Percy French, Arthur Maderson, Sean Scully, Sean MacSweeney, Hughie O’Donoghue, Jack B Yeats, Colin Middleton, Letitia Hamilton, Donald Teskey, Louis le Brocquy, John Shinnors, Richard Gorman, Dan O’Neill, Mainie Jellett, William Leech, Graham Knuttel and Roderic O’Conor are in the auction.
On the international side Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, Mr. Brainwash, Damien Hirst, Jacob Epstein, Salvador Dali all feature in a catalogue that is brimful of interest and online too. Lots from Morgan O’Driscoll’s upcoming auction of jewellery on April 22 will also be on view at the RDS.
William Crozier – Still Life (1984). UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,800 AT HAMMER
Markey Robinson (1918-1999) – Sailing on a Sunny Afternoon. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,400 AT HAMMER
This unusually colourful work by Markey Robinson is lot 44 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall art auction which runs online until March 2. The gouache on wallpaper is estimated at €1,500-€2,500. It is a big sale with 465 lots in total. There is art by Graham Knuttel, William Crozier, Majella O’Neill Collins, Sean Scully, Jack Butler Yeats, John Morris, Elizabeth Brophy, Annemarie Bourke, Liam Treacy, Mildred Anne Butler, Brian Ballard, Louis le Brocquy, Michael Hales, William Conor and many more artists. The catalogue is online.
