A meandering path with leafy branches above and a carpet of wildflowers below; the music of birdsong and a rushing river; and, nestling among the greenery as if it had grown there of its own accord, a graceful terracotta amphora or perhaps a Gothic window arch. This effortlessly tousled look is what many gardeners aspire to, but it takes a lot of work to get it right. Sheppard’s, the auctioneering firm in Durrow, Co Laois, is well on its way to achieving it with a new garden which it has created on the banks of the river Erkina, just outside the town.     The idea was to create a suitably sylvan setting in which to display the items for their annual sale of garden furniture and statuary. “We used to sell them from the yard at the saleroom,” says Philip Sheppard, “b...

We like to latch on to the names of paintings even though they’re sometimes slightly “off”; we should really refer to the Mona Lisa as La Gioconda, and the Laughing Cavalier isn’t actually laughing.  In centuries past, many artists simply didn’t bother much with titles, so scholarly research often demands a spot of titular tweaking – which is why two of the most significant Irish paintings at Adam’s Important Irish Art sale in Dublin this week (May 30th), Walter Osborne’s Counting the Flock (Lot 32, €100,000–€150,000) and Paul Henry’s A Bog Pool in Wicklow, (Lot 43, €35,000–€45,000) are coming under the hammer for the first time under new names. Lot 43, Paul Henry, A Bog in Wicklow “The frame of the Paul Henry painting has a label which says Sunset in the Mourne Mo...

It’s hard to get one’s head around the record-breaking series of sales at which the 1,500 objects comprising the Rockefeller Collection went under the hammer at Christies in New York earlier this month.    From the start the figures were jaw-dropping, and those zeros just kept on clocking up: by the end, it was a case of 100 per cent of lots sold and a total of more than $800 million donated to scientific research, higher education, the arts, sustainable economic development and land conservation initiatives.    And it’s not over yet – there’s still a jewellery sale to come on June 12th.    Among the world record prices for various artists including Matisse, Diego Rivera, Delacroix, Corot and others, we’ve got half a dozen flabbergasting favourites.&...

An Irishman visiting Morocco who bought a figurine in an antiques shop for €60 has discovered that his holiday souvenir is a 25,000-year-old piece of rhino horn worth tens of thousands of euro. The self-employed carpenter, who wishes to remain anonymous, visited Chefchaouen, a town in the Rif Mountains of northwest Morocco, inland from Tangier, in 2006, and bought the 6-inch high, carved figurine in an antiques shop that sold “mostly Islamic and Roman items”. The man, who collects antiques “as a hobby”, said he liked the figurine because it looked Chinese. He told The Irish Times that the item was priced at 800 [Moroccan] dirhams but he “haggled and got it for 600 dirhams – about €60”. He took the piece back to Ireland and began to research it. He believed the figurine was wood...

Sunday (February 11th) Matthews Auction Rooms, Oldcastle, Co Meath. A collection of photographs from the collection of Lt Charles Howard-Bury. Lot 1,006, Photograph of Mount Everest 1921, €600 (€70-€120); Lot 1,007, a group portrait photograph of Tibetans €300 (€70-€120); Lot 1,022 an album of photographs of “big game” hunting in India (€150-€250). Tuesday (February 13th) Sheppard’s Irish Auction House, Durrow, Co Laois. “Knot, Warp & Weft 18” – a dedicated sale of carpets and rugs. 87 per cent of lots sold. Lot 61, a late 20th-century carpet based on an original Donegal Design Carpet, after Gavin Morton and GK Robertson, navy ground, with large and bold floral motifs, enclosed by an ivory and peach flower head border €7,500 (€5,000-€7,000). Lot 18 at Sotheby’s, limite...

A draft version of one of Ireland’s most famous paintings – Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs by Sir Frederic William Burton – has come to light and will be sold at auction next month. Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers, said that an unnamed client has consigned the watercolour, an “original preparatory study” attributed to Burton which has been assigned a pre-auction estimate of €7,000-€10,000. It will go under the hammer on March 7th in the saleroom in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny. Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs was chosen as Ireland’s favourite painting in a poll carried out by RTÉ in 2012. The 19th-century watercolour, which hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland, dates from 1864. The subject was inspired by a medieval Danish ballad tran...

Auction Results Tuesday (February 20th) John Weldon Auctioneers, Cows Lane, Temple Bar, Dublin 8. Auction of Jewellery & Silver. 64 per cent of lots sold. An emerald & diamond three stone ring with an insurance valuation for €20,000 dated March 2016, sold for €4,000 (€4,000-€6,000); a pair of emerald & diamond earrings with an insurance value of €15,000 dated March 2016, sold for €1,500 (€1,500-€2,500). Wednesday (February 21st) O’Reilly’s Auction Rooms, 126 Francis Street, Dublin 8. Jewellery Auction at 1pm. Lot 294, a Russian carved stone cup with gold and gemstone handle by work-master Erik Kollin, Saint Petersburg, circa late 19th century, with round carved agate bowl mounted on a 14ct yellow gold rim with integral handle, finished with raised garnet cabochons €8,...

More than 3,000 lots will go under the hammer in a massive two-day clearance sale of items from various Dublin venues that have either closed down or have been refurbished. The items have been assembled by antiques dealer Niall Mullen and include the contents of the private club, Residence on St Stephen’s Green, Dublin which is closed for refurbishment, and the former nightclub Howl at the Moon on Mount Street, Dublin. Furniture, bar counters, light fittings, glassware, art and curtains are among the items being sold. There is also likely to be interest in items acquired following the closure of Clerys  The auction will also feature hundreds of items from the Shelbourne Hotel following the venue’s most recent refurbishment as well as “Irish folk and pub memorabilia” colle...

Those hardy Irish souls who swim in the sea – regardless of weather – will surely identify with the figures in a Jack B Yeats painting Old Men Bathing which is to be auctioned by Whyte’s in Dublin on February 28th. It shows two men wading out into the Atlantic – probably off the coast of Sligo – for an early morning swim. The figure on the right is about to submerge himself in the water, the other gazes out beyond the viewer as if surveying the sea and the rising sun. The title of the painting may puzzle contemporary viewers as the men don’t appear to be especially elderly but when Yeats made this painting in the early 1920s the average life expectancy for an Irish man was approximately 54 years. In a catalogue essay, the Yeats expert Dr Róisín Kennedy notes the swimmers’ “courag...

A unique series of portraits of all 13 former taoisigh has unexpectedly come to light, and will be sold at auction next week. But the identity of the mystery artist is likely to surprise the Irish art world. The oil paintings depict all of Ireland’s government leaders before Leo Varadkar, from the first, WT Cosgrave, to the most recent, Enda Kenny. They are signed “J.W” – which, the auctioneer said, were the initials for Johnny Wilson. But The Irish Times has learnt that Johnny Wilson is a persona created by the paintings’ Chinese artist. The portraits were commissioned by a Dublin businessman, Peter Dwan, who has revealed that the artist was a young man named Zhang Yi, who “came to Ireland to study English and art in around 2006”. After the two men were introduced to one another...

A Picasso portrait of one of his muses, Marie-Thérèse Walter, that had never been seen on the market, has sold for €56.7 million. The painting, which dates from late 1937, the year that Picasso produced his most famous work Guernica, was sold on Wednesday (February 28th) at Sotheby’s Bond Street salerooms. Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée (Marie-Thérèse Walter) fetched £49.8 million. In the same sale, Le Matador by Pablo Picasso £16.5 million (£14 million-£18 million); a bronze chandelier sculpture with figures of a man, a woman and a bird by Alberto Giacometti sold for £7.6 million. Auction Results Monday (February 26th) Whyte’s of Molesworth Street Irish & International Art auction, RDS, Dublin. 80 per cent of lots sold. Lot 30, Landscape, West of Ireland by Paul Henr...

A cheque for £10 given by Patrick Pearse to Clery’s in Dublin seven years before the 1916 Rising is among memorabilia from the former department store to be sold at auction next week. The cheque was signed by Pearse using the Irish language version of his name, Pádraig Mac Piarais, and is dated January 20th, 1909. The Hibernian Bank Ltd cheque, dated January 20th 1909, was made payable to Clery & Co Ltd and is stamped as having been cashed by Teller 9 at the National Bank, Dublin on February 1st, 1909.  Photographer: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times It is not known what Pearse bought with the cheque but his financial records show that he was a regular customer of the department store over the years. The National Library of Ireland has his chequebook from the ye...

Two centuries before the late singer Dolores O’ Riordan became a star, Limerick had produced one of the world’s first global music celebrities. Catherine Hayes was born in 1818 in the city’s Patrick Street and became a hugely famous soprano in the mid-19th-century. She performed at Covent Garden in London, La Scala in Milan, toured the Americas and Australia and, in 1849, at the pinnacle of her career, performed at Buckingham Palace for Queen Victoria and guests. When the queen asked for an encore, Hayes reputedly sang Kathleen Mavourneen. During a tour of the United States she so captivated an audience of gold miners in Nevada, they named a street in her honour – Kate Hayes Street in the town of Grass Valley. But in her late 30s she suffered poor health and died in 1861 aged 39....

“Old masters” paintings are enjoying a welcome renaissance in the fickle international art market which might bode well for a powerful painting entitled Golgotha, The Crucifixion on Mount Calvary at Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers on Wednesday - Lot 494 with an estimate of €10,000-€15,000. Many paintings of the Crucifixion focus on the figure of Jesus but this example features the entire scene of a pivotal event in Western culture and one of the most familiar scenes in religious art. The artist is unknown but the auctioneers believe it is Flemish School and dates from the 16th or 17th century. The painting will be familiar to some - it has been consigned by an unnamed “long-established private Irish institution”. Among other lots also consigned by this vendor is Lot 72, a late 18th/earl...

Auction Results Tuesday (March 6th) Christie’s, London: Auction of Post-War & Contemporary Art. Three Studies for a Portrait (1976), a triptych (three-panel) painting by Francis Bacon (inspired by Henrietta Moraes, a British artists’ model who lived in Ireland during the late 1970s and early 1980s at Roundwood House, Mountrath, Co Laois), sold for £10 million (€11.2m)(£10million-£15 million) [see pic]. Wednesday (March 7th) Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers, Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny: “The Chatsworth Spring Fine Art Sale”. 82 per cent of lots sold. Lot 367, a preparatory watercolour study for the very famous Hellelil and Hildebrand, The Meeting on the Turret Stairs (in the National Gallery of Ireland) by Sir Frederic William Burton €24,000 – three times the median estimate (€7,000-€1...

“Do collectors who start with one first edition, one Penny Black, or one Ferrari, have any idea of where it’s going to end?” The question is posed by Jeffrey Archer in a catalogue note for the auction of his Political Cartoon Collection at Sotheby’s in London on March 14th. The writer and former politician began collecting cartoons over 30 years ago and has now decided to sell his collection – some 225 leading examples of the genre – with estimates ranging from £200 to £20,000 (€225-€22.5k). Archer – also known as Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare – is a former British MP and deputy-chairman of the Conservative Party whose political career ended in disgrace when he was jailed in 2001 for perjury and perverting the course of justice. But he is more famous as a best-selling novelis...

Auction Results Wednesday (March 14th) Sotheby’s, London. The Political Cartoon Collection of Jeffrey Archer. Among lots of Irish interest were: Lot 9, a pencil-drawn cartoon by the illustrator Sir John Tenniel that appeared in Punch magazine depicting prime minister Gladstone’s difficulty in getting the 1881 Irish Land Bill through the House of Lords £875 (£700-£900); Lot 16, pen and ink drawing by William Giles Baxter dating from the 1885 royal visit to Ireland by the Prince and Princess of Wales, £813 (£500-£700); and Lot 69, a pen ink and watercolour cartoon, dated 1929, of Éamon de Valera by cartoonist and caricaturist Robert Stuart Sheriffs, £500 (£400-£600). Forthcoming Auctions Tuesday (March 20th) Victor Mee Auctions, Cloverhill, Belturbet, Co Cavan. Fine arts and ant...

Auction results Wednesday (March 21st), Victor Mee Auctions, Cloverhill, Belturbet, Co Cavan: Auction of advertising and pub items included three late 19th-century tobacco advertising mirrors recently found in a garden shed in Co Louth. Lot 205, a “Smoke Player’s Navy Cut Cigarettes” mirror €3,400 (€2,500-€3,500); lot 230, an “Ogden’s Guinea-Gold Cigarettes” mirror €2,000 (€2,000-€3,000); and lot 350, a “Smoke Hignett’s Night and Morning Two Flakes” mirror that made the top price of €3,600 (€2,500-€3,500). Lot 370, a “McConnell’s Old Irish Whiskey Belfast” advertising mirror also made €3,600 (€2,000-€4,000). Wednesday (March 21st), Bonhams, Knightsbridge, London – Fine Books and Manuscripts auction: Lot 266, an autograph manuscript, signed by Francis Ledwidge of his poem Lamen...

Paintings by the Victorian artist Richard Doyle are, according to Adam’s auctioneers, “remarkably rare” but there’s a large watercolour by him in Adam’s forthcoming art auction in Dublin on Tuesday (March 27th). But was he Irish and is it important? Well, up to a point – on both fronts. Richard Doyle, the son of the Irish cartoonist John Doyle, was born in London in 1824 and died in 1883. He was one of the best-known illustrators of the Victorian era. He worked for Punch magazine but was most famous as an illustrator of children’s books. His The Pied Piper of Hamelin, first exhibited in London in 1885, is lot 57 in the auction. The watercolour (50cm by 75cm) is estimated at €10,000-€15,000 and depicts the German folktale of the piper and his attempt to clear the town of a plague ...

What’s happened? Last month, in the space of 48 hours, 13 Picasso paintings sold for a combined total of £113 million at two auctions in London. Among them, at Sotheby’s on February 28th , a painting by Picasso of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter entitled Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée made £49.8 million (€56.7 million). This was the highest price for any painting ever sold at auction in Europe. Other highlights included Le matador (The bullfighter) which made £16.5 million in the same sale at Sotheby’s and, at Christie’s, the previous day, Mousquetaire et nu assis (a Musketeer and a seated nude) that made £13.7 million. Who’s buying? Neither Sotheby’s nor Christie’s named the bidders but it subsequently emerged that all 13 paintings had been bought by a London art dealersh...

Auction Results: Sunday (March 25th) Hegarty’s Auction Rooms, Bandon, Co Cork. Lot 12, A Georgian mahogany wine cooler €1,200 (€1,200-€1,300); Lot 10, a marquetry inlaid centre table €1,050 (€900-€1,100); Lot 16, a 19th-century fold-over card table €600 (€800-€1,000); Lot 114, a 19th century Irish cut-glass butter dish €670 (€200-€400); Lot 70, Early Morning, Hungry Hill, From Adrigole Bay (painting) by Duncan Watmough €280 (€300-€400); Lot 44, a silver sauce boat made by Barker Bros (Herbert Edward and Frank Ernest), date letter for 1917-18, and with the Chester mark €90 (€100-€150). Tuesday (March 27th) Adam’s, 26 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2. “Important Irish Art” auction. 85 per cent of lots sold. Lot 23, Looking Towards Achill from the East of Achill Sound by Paul Henry €4...

A carved stone head of a woman – found in a pile of rubble in a field in Co Meath – could be an extremely rare depiction of Catherine of Valois, a 15th-century Queen Consort of England. It will go under the hammer at Adam’s auctioneers in Dublin in April with a top estimate of €30,000. But how did it end up in the countryside in Ireland and why is it potentially so important? Where and when was it found? It was found by the vendor – who has consigned it to be auctioned – almost 50 years ago on land he owns in Co Meath. The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, told The Irish Times that when digging to put in a septic tank he had been “clearing a pile of rubble” and was “going to use the stones as infill” when he spotted the stone carving. He consulted the well-known Co Meath histo...

On Monday (April 9th), Mullen’s Laurel Park Auctioneers, Old Bray Road, Woodbrook, Bray, Co Dublin are holding an “Antique and Contemporary Interiors Auction’ at 11am with over 600 lots including selection of 19th & 20th century furniture, overmantel mirrors, chandeliers, china, silver and paintings. The auctioneers said the sale is “a must-see for hoteliers and those in the business of interior design with an interest in recreating an interior reminiscent of Versailles itself”. If French opulence is not your style, then “for those looking for a slightly more subdued living space, the contents of a Castleknock property will also be offered”. Among the highlights are Lot 288, a pair of marble and gilt brass-mounted urns on pedestals, €1,200-€1,500; Lot 405, a Continental carve...

The Asian art market is booming and the latest sales – a series of auctions at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong earlier this week – produced some extraordinary results. Last Tuesday (April 3rd) during an auction of Chinese works of art and ceramics, an enamelled porcelain bowl – just under six inches high – made by Imperial Order for the Kangxi Emperor of China (1661-1772) sold for HKD239 million (€24 million). The estimate had been advised as “in excess of HKD200 million” (approximately €21 million). Why so valuable? Sotheby’s described it as “without question the finest example of its type and the only ever recorded with this design. There exists however a closely related example, the pride of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, [Taiwan] which is painted with different flowers but the ex...

One of Ireland’s oldest cultural groups – the Dublin Painting & Sketching Club – held its first annual exhibition in 1876 at the Clarendon Horse Repository and Riding School, at the back of Trinity College. Those premises – on what is now Pearse Street – have long since gone but the club is still going strong. Down through the years the annual exhibitions were held at various city-centre venues including the former Queen’s Institute for Educated Women in Molesworth Street and the Irish Life building on Abbey Street. But at the end of the 20th century, the club moved to south county, to the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Hall which has hosted the event since 1998. But now the club is returning to the city centre and the 2018 annual exhibition opens on Monday (April 16th ) at CH...

Auctioneers de Veres of Kildare Street, Dublin, whose “Irish Art Auction” takes place on Tuesday (April 17th) believe – a mix of hope and expectation – that “the art market is due a price jump”. Auctioneer Rory Guthrie said prices for Irish art had dropped by 60 per cent – and more in some cases – after the economic crash and, although they’ve “improved slightly since the economic recovery began four years ago they are still down 40-50 per cent from the peak”. While he is confident that art prices will rise – “everything else, especially property, has gone up”, he admits that “prices haven’t yet risen enough to tempt many vendors to sell”. But, he added, “If the adage that the art market is ‘the last thing to rise and the last to fall’ is right, then the steady stream of new buye...

Monday, April 9th, Mullen’s Laurel Park Auctioneers, Old Bray Road, Woodbrook, Bray, Co Dublin. Lot 409, a Georgian-style mahogany dining table €2,000 (€1,800-€2,200); Lot 604, a set of four cast-iron and copper hooded street lamps €1,600 (€800-€1,200); Lot 361, a Georgian mahogany and brass-bound fuel bucket €1,600 (€900-€1,000); Lot 337, a French gilt-framed overmantel mirror 1,200 (800-1,200); Lot 594, two leather-bound Louis Vuitton suitcases €1,100 (€800-€1,200). Among the unsold was Lot 288, a pair of marble and gilt brass-mounted urns on pedestals (€1,200-€1,500). Monday, April 9th, R J Keighery’s City Auction Rooms, Waterford. Annual Garden auction Lot 572, 10ft high ‘Gothic’ design entrance gates €1,500 (€400-€600). Forthcoming auctions Sunday, April 15th, Adam’s, 26 St...

The current RTÉ television series National Treasures is showcasing everyday objects that explore the history of the island of Ireland over the past 100 years. The items are owned by members of the public, and will go on loan to an exhibition in the National Museum of Ireland. The organisers of the project said the aim was to “form a unique crowd-sourced tapestry of modern Irish history, one that emphasises the voices of ordinary Irish people” by collecting objects and revealing the fascinating stories behind them. As they pointed out, “sometimes the simplest object can be a trigger for an amazing piece of social history, and significant cultural value can be found in the strangest items”. While the purpose of the series is not to try to value the items in monetary terms, there is...

Auction results Sunday (April 15th) Adam’s, 26 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2. “At Home” antiques auction. 70 per cent of lots sold. Lot 141, a pair of vintage sunglasses by Cartier sold for €1,400 – seven times the top estimate (€150- €200). Among other highlights: Lot 133, a collection of 14 gold pocket watch cases €8,800 (€5,000-€6,000); Lot 252, a 1960s three-piece “Independence” sofa suite by Karl Wittmann €8,500 (€3,000-€5,000); Lot 378, Shipping off Howth Harbour, looking towards Ireland’s Eye by James Richard Marquis €4,600 (€5,000-€7,000); Lot 278, a Regency mahogany breakfront secrétaire bookcase €4,600 (€4,000-€6,000); Lot 432, Galway Hookers Becalmed, Roundstone Bay, Co. Galway (oil-on-canvas) by Ivan Sutton €1,800 (€1,500-€2,000). Among the unsold was Lot 29, a George ...

Whyte’s of Molesworth Street has just published the catalogue for The Eclectic Collector auction on May 5th. The sheer variety of items is likely to attract the most diverse range of collectors imaginable. Among the most fascinating items is Lot 37, an early 19th-century certificate dated 1835, permitting a male midwife to practise in Ireland, at the “Lying In Institution” in Townsend St, Dublin, issued by “Institutio Parturientium”, dated May 1st, 1835 (€400-€600). From human to veterinary medicine, Lot 511 will be of interest to thoroughbred racing fans as it comprises 20 X-rays of the racehorse Arkle taken by his vet, James F Kavanagh, in 1967 and estimated at €2,500-€3,000. The X-ray plates document the great racehorse’s career-ending injury to his pedal bone, from initial di...

It was bought at a jumble sale in Dublin 30 years ago. This week it goes under the hammer with an estimate of €20,000 to €30,000. And if that sounds like every book collector’s fantasy, well, it just goes to show that it does occasionally happen in real life.   A rare first edition copy of JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth adventure story The Hobbit, to be auctioned at Fonsie Mealy’s Rare Book and Collectors’ Sale on Wednesday, was picked up for peanuts.  “It was bought as a birthday gift by the gentleman whose granddaughter is now selling it,” says George Fonsie Mealy.  “There’s no price on it, so we don’t know how much he paid. But it was a jumble sale, so it might have been one pound, two pounds, three pounds, something like that.” Just 1,500 copies of the book we...

Auction results Wednesday (April 25th) O’Reilly’s Auction Rooms, 126 Francis Street, Dublin 8 Fine jewellery, watches and silver. Lot 307, sapphire and diamond cluster ring, one oval sapphire of 3.90ct with gem report, mounted with diamonds of approx. 0.90ct in total, €12,500 (€12,500-€14,500).  Lot 155, diamond line bracelet, set throughout with rectangular step cut diamonds of approx. 12.75ct, mounted in 14ct white gold, €12,000 (€11,000-€16,000).  Lot 76, diamond solitaire ring with baguette-cut diamond shoulders, €9,000 (€8,000-€10,000). Lot 74, diamond solitaire ring with HRD cert stating the diamond to be 1ct D VS1, mounted in platinum €6,500 (€6,500-€8,500). For more results see oreillysfineart.com   Tuesday (April 24th) Adam’s, 26 St Stephen’s Green, D...

Ever wondered what a Louis le Brocquy or a Donald Teskey would look like on your wall?  Well, you don’t have to wonder any more.  A new app developed by Morgan O’Driscoll allows you to try artworks on for size – not to mention shape, colour and mood – before you bid. Just download a marker, pop it on the wall, bring up the sale catalogue on your mobile phone and: hey presto!  You’re the proud owner of a virtual Paul Henry or Jack B Yeats.   Louis le Brocquy’s Reconstructed Head of a Child The effect is extraordinarily realistic. The first time I tried out the app, I nearly fell over as le Brocquy’s enormous Reconstructed Head of a Child suddenly materialised a couple of feet away, in all its diamond-shaped geometric glory.  It was a startli...

What sort of christening gift would be appropriate for a wealthy 18th-century baby? How did Youghal, Clonmel and several other Irish cities and towns become centres for the production of fine silver? What treasures were lost when Castlecomer House in Co Kilkenny was plundered, then burned to the ground by the United Irishmen in 1798? These and many other questions will be examined in Dublin on Wednesday when the Irish Georgian Society, the National Museum of Ireland and Maynooth University put a major spotlight on silver. A day-long symposium at the National Museum of Ireland Collins Barracks on May 30th will see scholars from Ireland, the UK and Europe present the latest research on Irish Georgian silver; there will also be a tour of the museum’s silver galleries, which are cele...

In May 1889 a new patient arrived at a small private hospital for the mentally ill in the French countryside. His state of mind was turbulent, so much so that he was not permitted to leave the grounds of the institution, a former Augustinian monastery situated near the town of Saint-Rémy de Provence.  Nor - at first - was he allowed to paint. As the months passed, however, his condition improved and he began to depict what he could see through the barred window of his room: an enclosed wheat field, bathed in sunlight. The patient was Vincent Van Gogh. He had admitted himself to the hospital in the hope that his health would stabilise, but despite periods of calm he was still suffering catastrophic seizures of the kind which had led him, following a violent argument...

Antiques fairs    Monday (May 7th) Annual Antique Fair in Killyhevlin Hotel, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh. There will be around 60 stands offering furniture, art, jewellery, silver, coins and banknotes, vintage, lamps, porcelain, advertising, militaria, books and ephemera and curios. 11am-5pm, admission £2, children free.  Sunday (May 13th) Antiques & Vintage Fair, Clontarf Castle Hotel, Dublin. Hosted by Antiques Fairs Ireland, with collectibles, coins and banknotes, antique and vintage furniture, books, jewellery and silver. 11am-6pm, admission €3.50. Results  Wednesday (April 25th) Mitchell’s Auctioneers, Roscrea, Co Tipperary. Irish Bygone and Social History Auction. Lot 9, “High Nelly” bicycle with chrome handlebars and wheel bell, €7,000 (€100-€200). Lo...

 It’s the colour of sky and sea, of cornflowers and gentians: ask most people in the world to name their favourite colour, and they’re likely to say “blue”.  No wonder sapphires are such cherished gemstones – especially those from the island of Sri Lanka which, for more than 2,000 years, has produced some of the bluest sapphires of them all.    At the Adam’s sale of jewellery and watches in Dublin on Tuesday, May 15th, Sri Lankan sapphires will be the stars of the show when lot 52 goes under the hammer with an estimate of €60,000-€80,000. Described in the catalogue as “property of an Irish lady”, this spectacular bracelet features seven cushion-shaped sapphires woven into a geometric garland of diamonds.   Designed in the 1950s, the bracelet epitomis...