Online book auctions have opened up the market to a whole range of international collectors, who previously spent their time trawling through bookshops, searching for rare or first-edition books.
And Conor Purcell, who is selling a collection of about 6,000 books in his Co Offaly auction rooms on Wednesday, January 22nd, is hoping to attract some of them.
While Purcell is encouraging people to come to Birr to look at this “exceptional collection of rare books from an ecclesiastical vendor”, he is also reaching out to a worldwide audience, through five online bidding platforms.
“I think it’s a cool thing to walk into an auction room and pick up a book dated 1615, but people are already bidding online for books in this collection,” says Purcell, adding that supervised viewing will be open to interested parties in the auction rooms over the next few days.
A rare Russian Bible in Church Slavonic script (also called classical Cyrillic, an alphabetic writing system developed in medieval Bulgaria) called, the Empress Elizabeth bible (estimate €200-€400), is one of the books drawing particular interest.
One of the earliest Irish-English dictionaries is another gem. It was published in Paris in 1732
“The book was taken from a church in Sevastopol in 1855 during the Crimean war. According to a manuscript note, the book was “liberated” from the church by a surgeon in the royal navy named TM Costello, apparently an Irish man,” says Purcell.
The Holy Land by David Roberts (1855), with an estimate of €400-€600, is another key book for sale. Roberts, a 19th-century British artist, illustrated iconic ruins, temples and famous landscapes on his travels to the Middle East in the 1830s. His books were very popular in the English-speaking world as people craved knowledge of early Christian sites and landscapes.
A first edition of one of the earliest Irish-English dictionaries, written by Conchúbhar Ó Beaglaoích, a priest and private tutor working in Paris; and Aodh Buí Mac Crúitín, a scholar from Co Clare, is another gem (estimate €800-€1,600). It was published in Paris in 1732, over 20 years before Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, deemed to be the first modern English dictionary.
An ornately bound book, The History and Antiquities of the City of Dublin (estimate €400-€600), published in 1767 by antiquarian Walter Harris, is another book that should attract interest. Complete with plates and early maps of Dublin, the quality of its binding is a particular appeal.
Purcell also points to Hieronymus: Omnium Operum, an academic commentary on the Bible, published in Basle, Switzerland, in 1516 as one of the oldest books for sale. The auction features several other books from the 16th and 17th century, many of them bound in original vellum or pigskin.
Sixty per cent of the books in the collection have ecclesiastical themes, many of which the collector (a retired priest) acquired from an uncle, who worked as a priest in Italy, Spain and Portugal during his lifetime.
Purcell contends that, unlike paintings and antique furniture, books can easily be bought and sold online – once the auctioneer presents high-quality photographs of the books and is honest about any particular damage to bindings.
“We use five different bidding platforms to reach different markets – easyliveauction.com for the English and European market, invaluable.com for the American market, salesroom.com for the higher-end English market and Drouot.com for the French market, as well as purcellauctioneers.ie,” he says.
On the day of the auction, Purcell and a colleague will view bids coming in on screens while managing live bids from the auction room in Birr, Co Offaly. “We already have bids coming in from collectors around the world including from Bible museums in America and Australia, which is new to me,” he says.
Ashford Castle antique furniture, art and motorcars auction
Meanwhile, an auction of antique furniture, art and motorcars, on behalf of the Red Carnation Hotel Group and Ashford Castle, will go under the hammer of auctioneer, Aidan Foley, on Monday and Tuesday, January 20th and 21st at 6pm.
The auction will attract classic car enthusiasts as it includes a Porsche Boxster convertible, a 2005 Range Rover and the 1997 Bentley R Turbo (€8,000-€12,000), which was symbolically parked outside Ashford Castle at the behest of its South African owner Stanley Tollman, who died in 2021.
With almost 600 lots, the auction also includes prints by French artists Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, some of which were published in the famous French art magazine Derrière le Miroir, to promote exhibitions by the artists in the Parisian Galerie Maeght.
“This auction will be the fourth we’ve held for the hotel over the last decade. As the hotel has constant upgrades and redesigns, there will be lots of suitable items for ordinary homes (eg armchairs, side tables, writing tables, mirrors and light fittings) in this auction,” says Foley.
purcellauctioneers.ie, irishcountryhome.com
What did it sell for?
Irish Georgian long case grandfather clock in Chippendale-style case, 1770
Estimate €800-€1,200
Hammer price €3,300
Auction house RJ Keighery
Patek Phillipe ladies’ 18k gold pocket watch
Estimate €2,000-€4,000
Hammer price €6,000
Auction house RJ Keighery
Swiss sunburst clock
Estimate €60-€100
Hammer price €160
Auction house RJ Keighery
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