The use of the word ‘monumental’ to describe lot 137 in Adam’s At Home sale on February 14th is not hyperbole.
The 19th-century giltwood hall mirror soars to 262cm – or about 8½ feet for those of us who still think imperially. Its width measures 147cm, but it also has a depth of just under half a metre as, unusually, it contains a jardinière to the front. Estimated at between €1,500 and €2,500, with lots of architectural details, it’s the sort of piece you could wait a decade for to come up in a sale.
It will, though, require considerable wall space, not just to fit, but also to allow a decent amount of border wall so it doesn’t look squashed into place.
Smaller options also feature in the catalogue of just under 500 lots. Lot 140 is an ornate Victorian offering of scroll form in the Rococo Revival manner (232 x 183cm) at €3,000-€4,000, while lot 174, in Louis XIV style, has cresting depicting the Roman god of water and the seas, Neptune. It’s also a large statement piece measuring 235cm wide and 185cm high (€2,000-€3,000).
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More deities can be found on the front cover of the catalogue depicting one of the highlights of the sale, Lot 162, a pair of bronze and gilt decorated busts of Egyptian goddess Isis and Pharaoh Rameses. After Pierre-Eugène-Emile Hébert, the pair are estimated at €1,500-€2,500. In its summary of Hébert, the National Gallery of Art in Washington notes that he “often adjusted his style to historical subject: severe neo-Greek handling in his Thetis, Oracle, and Oedipus and the Sphinx; and stylised and rigid neo-Egyptian handling in his busts of Rameses and Isis”.
More pharaohs can be found on a waterfall bookcase in the manner of Thomas Hope that features Egyptian figures standing at each side of the shelf (lot 170, €1,500-€2,000). Catalogue notes explain the northeast African influence: “Furniture designers like Thomas Hope helped define the Regency era of furniture.” He, like many designers of his time, “was determined to redirect furniture back to the principles of art and architecture, looking to the ancient models and traditions he studied on his extensive Grand Tour travels to Greece, Turkey and Egypt”.
The late Irish ceramic artist John ffrench also features with four lots. He was a prolific artist, and his works are well known for their colourful and playful design. But at the time of their creation, in the 1950s, commentators called his work “too obstinately asymmetrical”, saying it was “almost wickedly provocative” to describe colourful bowls and ashtrays. Six coasters, two goblets and a ceramic wall hanging are listed at €200-€300 per set, while two tazze are seeking €300-€500. These estimates may well be conservative, given the €2,200 achieved for a set of six tiny bowls through Whyte’s in December 2021.
In terms of silver, there are pitchers, parrots and a rather nice George III coffee pot at €500-€800. adams.ie
Make room for mahogany
Meanwhile, the following day, February 15th, Fonsie Mealy’s will hold its Making Room spring sale at the Avalon House Hotel in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny. All items in the sale will be sold with no reserve, so there may well be bargains to be had.
A William IV period mahogany drop-leaf table (lot 234) is listed at €80-€100, while a late Regency grained rosewood and brass inlaid sofa table that would benefit from a good polish (lot 237) is listed at €200-€300. A matched set of 10 early Victorian mahogany dining chairs (lot 242), in need of some TLC, are listed at €100-€150 and would make a lovely restoration project. And, to show the vast array of what can pop up at auction, the sale lists a 19th-century freshwater crayfish spear (lot 13, €80-€100) and a rather large doll’s house in the form of a four-bay Tudor pile, complete with attic windows (lot 224, €150-€200). fonsiemealy.ie
Joyce at the Gaiety
A rare enough lot in Purcell’s sale of a collection of Irish and world interest books, which will take place also on February 15th, is an original Gaiety Theatre programme for Sunday January 18th, 1948, when the theatre presented Exiles, the only play written by James Joyce. The play was first performed in Munich in 1919, as it had been rejected by WB Yeats for production by the Abbey Theatre, and Joyce was unable to find a theatre in the UK or the US to stage it. It was finally staged as a major performance in 1970, when Nobel Prize winner and dramatist Harold Pinter directed it at London’s Mermaid Theatre. Listed at €250-€350, the programme is “a very scarce and fragile Joycean item”, according to the catalogue. purcellauctioneers.ie
