Silver dinner plates from a grand house on Sackville Street, a commode decorated in the neo-classical manner of Angelica Kauffman, a Wyndham family portrait from Adare Manor, an Irish Regency chiffonier almost certainly made in Cork, a very rare Huguenot silver beer mug and even a disgraced cardinal feature at the James Adam spectacular Country House Collection auction next week.
Viewing starts today for this annual auction mostly drawn from country houses in Ireland such as Doneraile, Hamwood and Mount Stewart in the splendid surroundings of Townley Hall, a Georgian country house near Drogheda. The auction will take place over two days, with an online sale next Monday (Oct 14) and a live sale at Adam’s at St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on Tuesday.
This extra special sale is a highlight of the annual antique and fine art calendar in Ireland. With estimates from €100 to €40,000, the emphasis is on quality and rarity which underlines something always reinforced on these pages; quality is by no means the exclusive preserve of the super-rich, it is for anyone with a discriminating eye.
Among various highlights on offer is a set of 12 George II silver dinner plates from Drogheda House, Sackville Street, Dublin, made around 1737 by one of the most celebrated silversmiths of the day Robert Calderwood (€15,000-€20,000).
The same estimate is on a George I Irish beer mug made by Matthew Walker c1727. The elegant style of this silver mug was introduced into Ireland by the Huguenots and there is a similar example in the Smithsonian Institution.
A 19th-century demi-lune commode complete with painted roundels in the manner of Angelica Kauffman is estimated at €10,000-€15,000. So is a pair of Irish George II-style marble top console tables with rectangular marble tops and terminating in block-mounted hairy paw feet.
A 1671 portrait of Sir Francis Wyndham, 1st Baronet of Trent, in a suit of armour by John Michael Wright (1617-1694) is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. He is associated with Adare and the Quin and Wyndham families and this painting was in the Adare Manor sale in the 1980s.
In the early 19th century the Pain brothers, James and George, were commissioned to begin redesigning the house into a manor. Their lasting legacy is the spectacular gallery at Adare, then considered to be the largest domestic room in Ireland.
The painting by the artist Samuel West (1810-1867) was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841, the British Institution in 1842 and the Cork Art Union in 1843.
Samuel West was born in Cork in 1810 to a bookseller father who had moved from London and is thought to have started his art education in Cork before moving to Rome to study. The rise of the English statesman and Catholic cardinal Thomas Wolsey coincided with the accession of Henry VIII. He fell out of favour after failing to negotiate an annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, retreated to York and died of natural causes following an accident when returning to London to answer charges of treason.
Wolsey lived at the Palace of Whitehall. This was taken over by Henry as his principal residence in the capital and served as the seat of English monarchs until destroyed by fire in 1698. Cardinal Wolsey was in a non-canonical marriage with Joan Larke of Yarmouth and they had two children. A woman and two children are featured in the painting, now estimated at €20,000-€30,000.
An Irish Regency rosewood and brass inlaid chiffonier has a Dublin trade label but is thought likely to be a Cork piece because of features characteristic of Cork workshops in the 18th and 29th centuries.
These include shaped rope twist sides, spiral reeded columns, reeded edge and bun feet. The estimate is €8,000-€12,000.
A pair of Waterford oval cut-glass mirrors with blue and clear glass border is also estimated at €8,000-€12,000.
If you are unable to make it to Townley Hall the catalogue for this large and impressive sale is online.
Meanwhile, the sale at Woodward’s next Saturday (October 19) will be on view in Cork from 2pm to 4pm today and tomorrow and from Monday to Friday next week. Top lots include a set of six Cork 11-bar chairs, a Queen Anne walnut chest on chest, a Georgian Irish longcase clock and a Louis XV secretaire.
