Irish 19th Century mahogany Bureau stamped J.Kerr & Co., No. 68931. UPDATE: THIS MADE 9,500 AT HAMMER
THIS Irish bureau with an estimate of €1,000-€1,500 sold for a hammer price of €9,500 at Fonsie Mealy’s sale in Castlecomer today. The high price achieved was driven by a celebrity connection to Sir Winston Churchill. By family tradition it was gifted by Churchill to Sir Bindon Blood. Churchill had served under Blood at the North West Frontier in 1897 and dedicated his first non-fiction book – The Story of the Malakand Field Force – to him.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 19, 2025).
Irish 19th Century mahogany Bureau stamped J.Kerr & Co., No. 68931. UPDATE: THIS MADE 9,500 AT HAMMER
By family tradition this bureau was a gift from Sir Winston Churchill to General Sir Bindon Blood. It comes up as lot 576 at Fonsie Mealy’s sale in Castlecomer on March 5 and 6 with an estimate of €1,000-€1,500.
Churchill served under Blood on the North West Frontier in 1897 and dedicated his first non-fiction book – The Story of the Malakand Field Force – to him. Churchill’s dedication reads: “Major-General Sir Bindon Blood, K.C.B., under whose command the operations therein recorded were carried out; by whose generalship they were brought to a successful conclusion; and to whose kindness the author is indebted for the most valuable and fascinating experience of his life”.
Born in 1842 Blood attended The Royal School, Banagher, Co. Offaly, Queen’s College, Galway and the Addiscombe Military College before being commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1860. After service in Egypt, Afghanistan, India and South Africa he retired to London in 1907. He was made colonel commandant of the Royal Engineers in 1914 and worked to recruit soldiers for the First World War. He was aged 94 when he was made Chief Royal Engineer in 1936. He died in 1940.
Sir Winston Churchill’s only wartime painting – Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque (1943) – will lead Christie’s Modern British Art evening sale on March 1. From the collection of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who are divorcing, it is being offered for sale by the Jolie Family Collection. Painted in Marrakech following the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 – where it was agreed by the Allied forces that only complete surrender by the Axis powers would be acceptable – it is estimated at £1,500,000-2,500,000. Churchill invited Franklin D. Roosevelt to join him in Marrakech the day after the conference concluded, motivated by his desire to share the views of the city and the light at sunset. The view impressed Roosevelt so much that Churchill decided to capture the scene for him as a memento of their excursion. This act was seen not only as an indication of their friendship but of the special relationship between the UK and the USA.
The Hollywood couple bought the painting ten years ago at M.S. Rau in New Orleans.
Churchill began painting scenes of Morocco after being encouraged to visit the country by his painting tutor, Sir John Lavery. Upon his first visit in 1935, he felt that the light and scenery were unrivalled, creating some 45 paintings of the country. Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque stands out as the only painting he created between 1939 and 1945.
Sir Winston Churchill – Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £8,285,000, A WORLD AUCTION RECORD
A painting by Sir Winston Churchill gifted to Field Marshall Montgomery will come up at Christie’s in London next March. Scene at Marrakech is estimated at £300,000-500,000. The painting has remained with the Montgomery family since. It is being offered at auction for the first time. Sir John Lavery, Churchill’s tutor in painting, was one of many friends who encouraged Churchill to visit Morocco and his first trip to the country was during 1935 where he was inspired by the warmth and quality of light that the environment offered. Scene at Marrakech is one of Churchill’s more accomplished works of this subject matter. It will highlight the Modern British Art evening sale on March 1.
Sir Winston Churchill – Scene at Marrakech. UPDATE; THIS SOLD FOR £1,882,500
Sir Winston Churchill – The Goldfish Pool at Chartwell
The Goldfish Pond at Chartwell, 1962, the last work to be painted by Sir Winston Churchill, comes up at Sotheby’s in London on November 21. Gifted to the artists’ bodyguard Sgt. Edmund Murray, who served with Churchill from 1950 to his death in 1965, it has never been exhibited.
The work depicts the goldfish pool in the garden of Churchill and his wife Clementine’s home at Chartwell – the place most closely linked to his development as a painter. They bought the house in 1922 following an unexpected in heritance from a distant cousin. Unlike many of the landscapes of Chartwell this painting is unusual in zooming right into the water. The work will be offered with an estimate of £50,000-80,000, as part of Sotheby’s Modern & Post-War British Art Evening Sale in London.
The art of Sir Winston Churchill is hot. His Goldfish Pool at Chartwell sold for £1.7 million last year. Sotheby’s will offer two works by the wartime leader at the Modern British and Post War art sale in London on November 17. One of is Venice, the other the South of France. His Scuola di San Marco in Venice dates from 1951 when he was 77 and is estimated at £250,000-350,000. An earlier work, St Jean de Vie between Cannes and Grasse is from the 1930’s and is estimated at £120,000-180,000.
Lynn Chadwick’s Stabile with Mobile Element comes to the market for the first time. Off the radar for over 60 years and previously only known through the artist’s original sketch it is being sold by the family of its one and only owner, who acquired it in 1954, just two years after it was made. It is estimated at £400,000-600,000.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for October 14, 2014).
Sir Winston Churchill, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., HON. R.A. ST JEAN DE VIE BETWEEN CANNES AND GRASSE
Sir Winston Churchill, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., HON. R.A. THE SCUOLA DI SAN MARCO IN VENICE
