Artfact is pleased to announce its newest partnership with Whyte and Sons, Ireland’s premier auction house for Irish art and collectibles.

Founded in 1783, Whyte’s main offices in Dublin make it Artfact’s second Irish partner house. Each year, Whyte’s builds upon their reputation of two centuries of handling fine art in Dublin, offering lots from private collectors, estates, and an unrivaled range of Irish art and collectibles over six to eight carefully planned sales.

For more information on current, upcoming and past sales from Whyte’s, visit http://www.artfact.com/auction-house/whyte-s-nzjteozzhu

An eye witness account of the Battle of the Boyne estimated at £10,000 – 15,000 was sold yesterday at Bonham’s book sale for £43,200.

The journal’s author, Captain John Stevens, tells of the chaos caused by the drunkenness of King James’s troops at the crucial moments before battle was joined – a fact discreetly overlooked by 19th century historians. In fierce bidding, the book was finally sold to an unnamed buyer.

A specially bound first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses made £22,800 against an estimate of £10,000-15,000 and the first edition in English of Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy was sold for £28,000 (estimate £10,000 – 15,000).

Three photographs taken by Lewis Carroll of one of his favourite models, Alexandra ‘Xie’ Kitchen made £24,000 (estimate £10,000 – 15,000).

In total the sale made £500,000 and 90% was sold by value.

A thousand drunken troops, and generals leading from behind are among the startling revelations in an eye-witness account of the battle of the Boyne for sale at Bonhams on June 8.

Captain John Stevens took part in the battle and later wrote of how a fatal mix up over drink rations led to some troops passing out before a shot was fired.

The Battle of the Boyne in 1690 was between the Protestant King of England and Scotland, William of Orange and the King he had deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, his uncle the Catholic James II. In a bid to recover his throne, James and his Jacobite army had occupied much of Ireland during 1689 with the exception of Ulster which remained loyal to the Protestant cause. William landed in Ulster on June 1690 intent on expelling the invaders. The two armies, commanded by the monarchs in person, faced each other across the River Boyne 30 miles north of Dublin on 12 July.

This handwritten account by Jacobite solider and author Captain John Stevens is seen as one of the most important records of the battle. Parts of it, describing scenes of drunkenness, however, were deliberately omitted from historical accounts for many years. Stevens describes the lack of leadership on the Catholic side – “No General Officer above a Brigadier was seen among us” – and the chaos caused by the drunkenness of the troops at the crucial moments before battle was joined. King James had ordered brandy to be delivered to every regiment to provide courage on the eve of battle but it didn’t turn up until the next morning. Stevens describes what happened next, “the soldiers beat out the heads of the hogheads and dipped into them the kettles they had to boil their meat and drank so extravagantly that 1000 of them were rendered unfit for service and were left dead drunk scattered about the fields.”

Through a combination of poor leadership, ill equipped infantry and a loss of nerve at crucial moments, King James lost the battle and shortly afterwards abandoned Dublin to William’s forces and returned to France. Stevens account of the battle and other writings are for sale at £10,000 -15,000.

Ulysses First Edition also for sale
The sale also features a first English edition of Ulysses. It is number 75 of 100 specially bound copies signed by James Joyce from a overall print run of 1,000 with a cover designed by Eric Gill. Dated 1936 it too is estimated at £10,000 – 15,000.

www.bonhams.com/books

Morgan O’Driscoll’s next auction on the 26th April 2010 has all the ingredients to be a very exciting sale, there are 285 lots of art and sculpture on offer. Many items have no reserve and nearly all have estimates not seen in the last 10 years.

Based in West Cork, Morgan O’Driscoll IAVI has been conducting auctions throughout Ireland since the company’s inception in 1994. We have built a strong reputation as one of Ireland’s leading Fine Art & Antiques Auction Houses.

Morgan O’Driscoll Fine Art & Antiques, Cork Road, Skibbereen, Co. Cork t: +353 28 22338 / +353 86 2472425

www.morganodriscoll.com

An important portrait by Sir John Lavery (1856-1941) and undoubtedly the most important early masterpiece by Louis le Brocquy (b. 1916) will headline Sotheby’s annual Irish Sale in London on Thursday, 6 May 2010. Over 65 works from the sale are to be part of an extensive touring exhibition which starts at Lismore Castle Arts, Co. Waterford, on 17-18 April, and then continues in Dublin between 20-21 April and Belfast from 23-24 April.

he Gold Turban by Sir John Lavery (lot 30) is considered one of the finest portraits by the artist of his wife Hazel (1880-1935). Painted in 1929, it is the most significant late portrait of one of Lavery’s most glamorous subjects and his favourite model. Estimated at £400,000-600,000 (€441,000-665,000), the picture showcases the artist’s skilful handling of paint in the sitter’s headwear – rendered in shimmering tones – luminescent skin and slash of red lipstick. These elements are accentuated by the contrasting dark background and costume. Married in July 1909, the couple was renowned in London society, playing host to the Churchills, the Coopers, the Asquiths and many other glitterati of the period. Hazel Lavery was photographed by the renowned society photographer Cecil Beaton, the face of an early Pond’s Cold Cream advertising campaign and achieved present and posthumous fame as Kathleen ni Houlihan on Irish banknotes. Throughout her twenty-five year marriage, she posed for full-lengths, half-lengths, ovals and head studies, culminating in The Gold Turban. Following Lavery’s election to the Royal Academy in 1911, one of his early exhibits was a portrait of Hazel entitled The Silver Turban, which was succeeded by a calvacade of portraits noted for their colour harmonies, including Hazel in Black and Gold and Hazel in Rose and Gold. In the present work the ‘belle allure’ of the earlier portraits reaches an intensity not seen elsewhere in Lavery’s oeuvre. Swathed in fur, Lady Lavery glances to her side, her Uhlan-style headwear shadowing her eyes. With this work, Lavery demonstrated his ongoing formal and ‘artistic’ concerns, yet he also imparted to his wife a seductive, animated quality, something many of her portraits had not yet revealed. The Gold Turban will also grace the front cover of Kenneth McConkey’s monograph, Lavery, A Painter and his World, published by Atelier Books in April 2010.

Spectrum Group International, Inc. announced that it has appointed Paul Soth as its Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, effective immediately.

Mr. Soth, aged 51, served as Director of Income Tax Processes and Systems for Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. from August 2009 until April 2010, and as Corporate Controller and Tax Manager for Fontainebleau Resorts from August 2006 to May 2009. Mr. Soth also served as Tax Manager of Mandalay Resort Group from August 1999 to April 2005. Mr. Soth graduated from California State University, San Marcos, with a B.S. in Business Administration — Accounting, and is completing his M.S. in Accountancy from the University of Phoenix.

Thor Gjerdrum, who served as Chief Financial Officer of the Company since June 2008, will return to A-Mark Precious Metals on a full-time basis, serving as Chief Financial Officer of A-Mark and focusing on the commercial aspects of the Company’s trading business, particularly its financing operations.

Spectrum Group is a consolidated global collectibles network. The Company is a leading auctioneer of stamps, coins, rare and fine vintage wine, and arms, armor and militaria, targeting both collectors and dealers. Spectrum is also a merchant/dealer of certain collectibles and trader of precious metals. The Company’s collectibles offerings span the modest to ultra high-end price spectrum.

The Treasury Department has announced that it will auction $28 billion in 3-month notes.

The auction has been set for Monday, April 5. It has a maturity date of July 8.

The previous 3-month notes auction took place on March 29. It featured the sale of $28 billion of the security, a bid-to-cover ratio of 4.16 and a stop-out rate of 0.145 percent.

It also plans to auction $40 billion in 3-year notes.

The auction will take place on Tuesday, April 6. It has a maturity date of April 15, 2013.

The previous 3-year notes auction took place on March 9. It saw the sale of $40 billion of the security, a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.13 and a stop-out rate of 1.437 percent.

The Easter 1916 Irish flag that flew over the GPO during the Easter Rising failed to sell at a Bloomsbury Auctioneers Irish sale in New York on March 23 2010 when it was withdrawn at $400,000, a full $100,000 under its reserve price. The focal point of the 70-lot Irish Salewas the Tricolour flag. This unique icon of the Irish Revolution and the only recorded full sized tricolor of the 1916 Rising in existence.

Bloomsbury New York held the auction in conjunction with Whyte’s Auctioneers.

The 150 new jobs will be in customer service, personal account management and process enhancement. The latest job creation will bring to more than 1,600 the number of people employed at eBay and it;s payment company Paypal’s Blanchardstown site.

eBay’s Dublin site director Dublin Andrew Pease said the roles were in areas that support its global and European strategy, and the company is seeking strong technical skills in business analytics, knowledge management, project management and account management.

“The decision to expand eBay Dublin is a reflection of our confidence in the standard of skilled workforce within the Irish market,” he said.

Bloomsbury Auctions, the world’s leading auction house for rare books and works on paper, announces The Irish Sale which will be held in its Manhattan rooms on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 10am. The sale is held in conjunction with Whyte’s, Ireland’s premier auction house for Irish art and collectibles.

The focal point of the 70-lot Irish Sale is the Tricolour flag. This unique icon of the Irish Revolution and the only recorded full sized tricolor of the 1916 Rising in existence, is of the utmost rarity and importance (lot 26). It is accompanied by a note from its first owner stating that it was ‘Captured by British Troops at GPO Dublin 1916 and given to Dr George St George by an old War Veteran Sergt Davis.’ Inspired by an earlier revolutionary emblem, the French Tricolour, it was made of Irish linen in three sections: green, white and gold, and measured 29?x63?. However, when it was originally delivered to the headquarters of the Rising it had been assembled in the wrong order and so had to be hurriedly unstitched! A symbol of the Independent Irish Republic and the de facto flag of the state, it was hoisted outside the GPO building in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916. While standing beneath this very flag, the Commander-in-Chief of the Dublin Brigade, James Connolly, uttered the immortal words: ‘For the first time in 700 years the flag of a free Ireland floats triumphantly in Dublin City.’ This crucial icon of the Irish Revolution is estimated at $500,000-$700,000.

Exhibition:
Wednesday, March 17th – Friday, March 19th, from 10am – 5pm
Saturday, March 20th, from 10am – 3pm
Monday, March 22nd from 10am – 5pm
Or by private appointment

The sale of a 4.6 per cent 2016 bond and a 4.5 per cent 2020 bond on March 16th is expected to raise between €1 billion and €1.5 billion.

“At its last monthly competitive auction in February, the NTMA raised €1.5bn, hitting the top of its target range at lower yields than in recent auctions in a sign that investors favoured Ireland’s debt over other weaker Euroland states,” said Bloxham’s chief economist Alan McQuaid.

“Purely on a funding perspective alone, Ireland is in better shape than the other ‘peripheral’ euro zone bond markets and we expect that to be reflected in strong investor appetite for this latest debt offering.”

A Chinese blue and white vase started with a bid of €50 before two collectors started a bidding war.

Auction visitors at Sheppards Irish Auction House in County Laios, Ireland, watched as the vase was eventually sold for €110,000.

Richard Peters, 48, who runs an antiques company in Kensington, was the eventual buyer after outbidding a dealer who had flown in from Beijing, China, for the auction.

Mr Peters, who is adamant the vase was ‘made for the personal collection of Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century’, said: ‘I got a bargain!

‘The vase had probably been looted from the Imperial Palace in Peing by French, British or American soldiers sometime during the 19th century.

uctioneer Michael Sheppard said he was amazed when the vase sold for 1,000 times more than its original estimated value, explaning: ‘Something like this happens once in a lifetime.’

Mr Sheppard added the sale was ‘the highest figure ever achieved for any item’ during the 60-year histroy of Sheppards Irish Auction House.

ICAP Ocean Tomo, the intellectual property brokerage division of ICAP plc (IAP.L), will offer for sale a patent portfolio of search engine and related online advertising technology at its upcoming Live Auction March 25th in San Francisco. The portfolio includes 6 issued U.S. patents and 14 patent applications.
The assets included in this Lot describe methods for the dynamic selection and placement of online advertisements alongside web content. The included applications provide for the selection of online advertisements based on the web content and financial parameters such as fees paid by the advertisers, associated with the advertisements. User activity like the movement of a cursor, determines the location of the online advertisement.

ICAP Ocean Tomo’s Dean Becker stated, “This portfolio will help its owners serve, select, and optimize online advertisements in a manner similar to those of industry leaders such as Google, Microsoft’s Bing, and Ebay.”

Online advertisement revenues in the U.S. are expected to reach nearly $25 billion in 2010, representing a 9% growth since 2009.1 This Lot should be considered a valuable asset to online advertising service providers, businesses in the SEO industry, and other online marketing solution providers.

To learn more about the patent available for sale in this lot, visit http://icapoceantomo.com/item-for-sale/online-advertisements. To register to attend the upcoming Live Auction, please visit www.icapoceantomo.com

Irish telecoms regulator Comreg has begun the auction process for the new 15-year licences. ComReg also says the auction could raise up to EUR182. The auction is expected to take place in the middle of 2010.

The licences are currently held by O2 and Vodafone.

Auction of Antiques & Fine Art on Wednesday January 27th at 10.30am.

View: Preceding Saturday & Sunday 2pm – 5pm
Monday 10am – 7pm & Tuesday 10am to 5pm

Joseph WOODWARD & Sons Ltd 26, Cook Street, Cork, Ireland, T: 021-4273327 F: 021-4272891

www.woodward.ie