JOHN BUTLER YEATS (1839-1922) – William Butler Yeats. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,000 AT HAMMER
This drawing of the poet W.B. Yeats by his father John Butler Yeats has attracted some competitive bidding at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Irish art which closes this evening. Estimated at 800-1,200 the small pencil drawing measuring 12″ x 9.4″ originally in the Yeats family collection has so far attracted 48 bids. The current bid on lot 44 stands at 3,000. The catalogue is online.
Pauline Bewick (1935-2022) – Sleeping Beauties at Morgan O’Driscoll (€800-€1,200). UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,200 AT HAMMER
The height of the holiday season has not deterred two west Cork based auctioneers from planning sales for Tuesday August 2. The evening art sale by Morgan O’Driscoll next Tuesday can be viewed in Skibbereen today, on Monday and on Tuesday. The selection is impressive and among the artists featured on the catalogue are Sean Scully, Louis le Brocquy, Felim Egan, Basil Blackshaw, Letitia Marion Hamilton, Colin Middleton, Mary Swanzy, William Crozier, Cecil Maguire and Pauline Bewick who died on Thursday at her home in Co. Kerry, with sculpture by Helen Walsh, Ray Delaney, Oisin Kelly and John Behan.
In Bandon Hegarty’s August fine interiors sale features a selection of over 200 lots of furniture, art, silver, jewellery and collectibles. An 18 carat Columbian emerald and diamond cluster ring is estimated at €11,000-€12,000. Among the other highlights is a pair of black cast iron benches (€1,000-€1,200), a mixed media on canvas by Philippe Aird (€800-€1,200), a stone bust on pillar of Mark Anthony (€400-€600) and a bronze bust of Diane of Poitiers (€300-€600). The catalogues for both sales are online.
THOMAS RYAN PPRHA (1929-2021) – Silver Cup and Pink Rose. UPDATE: THIS LOT ATTRACTED 49 BIDS AND MADE 5,800 AT HAMMER OVER A TOP ESTIMATE OF 1,200.
This oil on board by Thomas Ryan is lot 49 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Irish art which runs until August 2. Silver Cup and Pink Rose, measuring just 5.9′ x 7.9′ was exhibited at the Lee Gallery in Cork in 2004 and is estimated at €800-€1,200. The artist attended the Limerick School of Art, then the National College of Art in Dublin, where he studied under Seán Keating and Maurice MacGonigal. He first exhibited at the RHA in 1957, became an associate member in 1968, was elected President of the RHA in 1982 and served until 1992.
His many commissions for portraits included Presidents, Taoisigh, cardinals and archbishops, provosts and University Presidents. He was known for his sensitive still-life and genre paintings and for Irish historical scenes, especially those of the 1916 Rising.
The catalogue is online and the sale will be on view in Skibbereen, west Cork from July 28.
JOHN BUTLER YEATS (1839-1922) – Study of Jack B. Yeats. UPDATE: THIS MADE 700 AT HAMMER
This pencil drawing study of the artist Jack B Yeats by his father the artist John Butler Yeats is lot 4 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current online art auction which ends on June 27. Originally from the Yeats family collection, then in a private collection, it is estimated at 700-1,000. The catalogue for the sale is online.
DANIEL O’NEILL (1920-1974) – HEAD UPDATE: THIS MADE 19,000 AT HAMMER
Dan O’Neill, Louis le Brocquy, Jack B Yeats, John Shinnors and Mr. Brainwash all feature at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online evening sale of Important Irish Art on June 20. The auction kicks off with a Study for a Stained Glass Window by Evie Hone and there is art by Mainie Jellett, Percy French, Arthur Maderson, Cecil Maguire, Flora Mitchell, Sean Keating, Rose Barton, Mildred Anne Butler and a wide variety of Irish artists whose work is sought after. The catalogue is online.
ROSE MAYNARD BARTON (1856-1929) – Coming from the Dairy, Lancelot Place, London (Knightsbridge) (1924). UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,100 AT HAMMER
What a difference 98 years makes. It is Knightsbridge, but not as we know it. This 1924 watercolour on paper by Rose Barton shows Lancelot Place, Knightsbridge, in 1924. It comes up at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online auction of Important Irish Art which runs until June 20. In The Dairy at Lancelot Place Barton, who lived nearby, depicts a woman carrying a jug of milk and holding a child by the hand. In a catalogue note Peter Murray writes: “Although preserving much of the rural character of eighteenth-century London, Lancelot Place was by then just a stone’s throw from the new Harrods department store. Today, the street is lined with modern apartment buildings, making Barton’s watercolour an all the more valuable record of London’s past”. Barton first showed at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1878, and in London two years later, at the Dudley Gallery. Over the following decade she had successful exhibitions in both London and Dublin. Elected an associate member of the Society Women Artists by 1886, seven years later she became an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colour, (RWS) and a full member in 1911. This work is estimated at €2,000-€3,000.
Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Lynch at Sheppards. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Great Irish Interiors at Sheppards, collectibles at Whyte’s and Mullen’s, art at Morgan O’Driscoll and James Adam, an Irish collection at Sotheby’s in London, design at de Veres and antique furniture at Woodwards should get a busy summer season off to a flying start over the next week or so. Kicking off with an Eclectic Collector sale online at Whyte’s in Dublin today buyers at all price points will find plenty to choose from. Wine drinkers who enjoy Chateau Lynch Bages will no doubt be fascinated by a portrait at Sheppards of Jean Baptiste Lynch (1749-1835), Mayor of Bordeaux, Count of the French Empire, lawyer and son of Thomas Lynch who produced high quality wines under the name Cru de Lynch which eventually morphed into Lynch-Bages. The Lynch family – one of the Tribes of Galway – fled persecution in Ireland in the 17th century and this portrait is from the Derk estate in Co. Limerick, thence by descent. Lot 23 is estimated at €15,000-€25,000.
Three days of sales at Sheppards get underway next Tuesday (May 24). Viewing starts in Durrow today and the catalogue with a fascinating selection of antique furniture, Chinese and African collectibles, ceramics, chandeliers, sllver, jewellery and collectibles is online.
Along with Robert Emmet’s 1803 Proclamation Whyte’s sale today offers 1916 Rising and War of Independence documents and medals, Seamus Heaney signed first editions, Polar exploration volumes, maps, banknotes and coins and entertainment and sporting memorabilia. A Butterfly Spin by Damien Hirst and a silkscreen print of John Wayne by Andy Warhol feature at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of affordable art which runs until next Monday evening (May 23) A strong selection of 20th century classic design furniture and Irish art will come under the hammer at de Veres next Tuesday afternoon (May 24). There is Danish and Italian furniture and lighting by designers including Arne Jacobsen, Finn Juhl, le Corbuser, Mies van der Rohe and Arne Vodder and art by Felim Egan, Robert Ballagh, Francis Tansey, Terry Frost and William Crozier.
An Irish George III oval mirror at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE £10,080
The sale of Monte Alverno: An Irish Collection at Sotheby’s in London next Thursday will give Irish and international collectors a chance to pick up something Irish and special like Regency peat buckets, gilt mirrors, antique furniture and art ranging from 18th century bird gouaches by Samuel Dixon through to Yeats, James Arthur O’Connor, John Luke and Patrick Swift.A pair of Georgian peat buckets and a pair of Edwardian demi-lune side tables are among the top antique furniture lots at Woodwards sale in Cork next Saturday (May 24). Among the Georgian lots are a three pillar dining table, a library table, a card table, a wine cooler, a bureau, a chest of drawers and a lowboy. An Edwardian inlaid sofa table and an office mahogany desk are among around 300 lots here.Next week is bookended by a sale of history, militaria and collectibles at Mullens of Laurel Park.
Photograph of a female climber in Victorian days at Mullen’s UPDATE: THIS LOT MADE 380 AT HAMMER
Among the first photographs of rock climbers in action were those taken by the Abraham family at Keswick in the Lake District. Mullens will offer a box of 50 glass stereoscope slides of 19th century images from Cumberland and North Wales featuring climbers in tweeds, flat caps and, in one memorable image, a skirt. In those Victorian times there was no lack of equality on the mountains. The sale kicks off with a skull of a Great Irish Elk. There is a poetry book inscribed by Roger Casement in Pentonville Prison on the night before his execution to Fr. Murnane of The Presbytery, Bermondsey.
Einstein by Mr. Brainwash. UPDATE: THIS MADE 5,800 AT HAMMER
Einstein by Mr. Brainwash comes up as lot 17 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current online auction of Irish art, which goes on view in Skibbereen from today. It is estimated at 5,000-7,000. The catalogue for the sale of paintings and sculpture, which runs until May 23, is online now.
LOUIS LE BROCQUY (1916-2012) – Playboys of the Western World. UPDATE: THIS MADE €1,600 AT HAMMER
This set of six lithographs framed as one by Louis le Brocquy comes up as lot 15 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s affordable online Irish art auction which is running now. The estimate is 800-1,200. The catalogue, with work by a wide variety of artists, is online now and bidding ends from 6.30 pm on May 3.
Stacks of hay and corn, once a familiar sight throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, have now virtually disappeared from our landscapes. This oil on canvas board by Edith Somerville (1858-1949) (one half of the Somerville and Ross writers who created the popular Irish RM books) evokes memories of the way we were, when farming was less mechanised, more labour intensive and more sociable. The undated west Cork scene entitled Cornstacks, Sandycove, Castlehaven comes up as lot 51 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online evening sale of Irish and International Art on April 26 with an estimate of 1,500-2,500. This fascinating sale with offerings by everyone from Paul Henry and Frank McKelvey to Keith Haring and Andy Warhol is on view at the Minerva Suite at the RDS in Dublin until today. UPDATE: THIS MADE €4,200 AT HAMMER