Dublin – Bonhams will celebrate its first sale held on the island of Ireland with The Irish Sale: Vision & Voice. The auction will be on view at City Assembly House, Dublin from 24-28 November with the online sale live forbiddingfrom 17-28 November 2023.
Kieran O’ Boyle, Head of Bonhams Ireland & Northern Ireland, commented, “Bonhams will be celebrating those whose vision and voice shaped the cultural and artistic identity of Ireland through Irish art, culture, design, and history. This sale offers an exciting and rich selection of works, not least the remarkable Irish News Collection.”
Featuring over 30 works, The Irish News Collection will lead the sale. Formed over 40 years by the late Jim Fitzpatrick, former owner of The Irish News, Ireland’s largest selling morning newspaper, the collection features Irish art from the 19th century to the modern day. Among the highlights is a portrait by Sir William Orpen (1878-1931) of his daughter Christine, universally known as Kit. Portrait of Kit, estimated at €80,000-120,000, was painted in 1912, when she was just six years old. Other artists represented in this impressive collection include Margaret Clarke, Harry Kernoff, William Conor, Frank McKelvey, John Behan and Maeve McCarthy.
The sale will also showcase artworks from the collection of Mary Hobart including artists such as Michael Farrell, William Leech, and John Butler Yeats. Paul Henry, known for his expansive landscapes, is also represented in this sale, with one of the best examples to come to market in some time, a quintessential west of Ireland landscape, Killary Bay, Connemara, with an estimate of €120,000-180,000.
The sale will also feature the annotated typescripts from James Joyce’s novel, Finnegans Wake. Written over a period of 17 years and first published in 1939, it was Joyce’s final work. The typescripts have an estimate of €40,000-60,000.
Other sale highlights include Coastal Narrative by contemporary painter Donald Teskey (Irish, born in 1956), which has an estimate of €30,000-50,000. A rare bust of Michael Collins (1890-1922) by sculptor, Francis William Doyle Jones (British,1873-1938) with an estimate of €5,000-10,000 will also be offered. Handwritten lyrics of Your Song Saved My Life by Bono with an estimate of €10,000-15,000 is one of the highlights of the rock and pop culture category along with a U2 autographed sleeve for the October album, 1981, with an estimate of €1,800-2,200 and Thin Lizzy autographed Decca promotional poster for the album Vagabonds of The Western World, 1973 with an estimate of €600-800.
A George V silver and enamel casket by Sharman D Neill, Dublin 1923, belonging to Lord Carson will also feature in the sale. The domed lid is inscribed “Presented to Lord Carson by the Loyalists of Ulster,16th October 1923, This casket contains the key of the album in which are inscribed the names of your dedicated admirers throughout Ulster.” Edward Henry Carson, Baron Carson, PC (Ire) (1854-1935) was an Irish Unionist politician, barrister, and judge. He served as Attorney General and Solicitor General for England, Wales and Ireland as well as the First Lord of the Admiralty for her British Royal Navy. He is also remembered for his open-ended cross examination of Oscar Wilde in a legal action that led to Wilde being prosecuted and goaled. The casket is offered with an estimate of €6,000-8,000.
