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Lot 47: Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) THE TÁIN COLLECTION

Est: €250,000 EUR - €300,000 EURSold:
Whyte'sBallsbridge, IrelandMay 21, 2012

Item Overview

Description

signed with initials in the weave on reverse by maître-lissier, René Duché and numbered lower right; with certificate of authenticity sewn on reverse, signed, numbered, titled and dated by le Brocquy and Duché

Dimensions

h:72.50 w:110in.

Artist or Maker

Medium

Aubusson tapestry; Atelier René Duché (each no. 4 from an edition of 9)

Exhibited

'Louis le Brocquy Aubusson Tapestries', Agnew's, London, 3-29 May 2001, The Táin Tapestries

Provenance

Agnew's, London;
Where purchased by the current owner

Notes

Louis le Brocquy was living in France with his young family when he received a life-changing invitation, in December 1966. Publisher Liam Miller wanted him to collaborate with Thomas Kinsella on a new translation of Ireland's oldest saga. Le Brocquy penned an enthusiastic affirmative that Christmas Eve and spent much of the next three years visualising An Táin Bó Cúailgne. In September 1969, Dolmen Press published it as The Táin.
The Táin was born of some eighty stories about the Ulaidh, a prehistoric people who lived in the north and north-western regions of what is now called Ireland. Part epic, part soap opera, the tales were vivid, vicious, inconsistent and often rather rude. Oral versions survived for long enough to be collected by scribes, whose fragmentary manuscripts are now in Trinity College and the Royal Irish Academy. Translators and writers such as Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats had retold some of the Cúchulainn tales - and Joyce's Finnegans Wake drew on its meandering style - but Thomas Kinsella's Táin was the first widely-accessible version, especially when Oxford University Press' 1970 paperback followed the de luxe and limited editions produced by Dolmen Press.
The Táin marked a unique cultural moment, for Ireland and the world. The State had just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising and was driving ahead with Seán Lemass' Second Programme for Economic Expansion. By 1969 when it was published, Northern Ireland was in conflict, and global events such as the Prague Spring, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, as well as wars in Vietnam, Angola and elsewhere, underlined its themes of invasion and carnage. Meanwhile, The Beatles sang "All You Need is Love."
Its impact was instant. Although characters like Cúchulainn and Ferdia, Medb and Aillil, were local, the collaborators translated them into a crisply contemporaneous style that resonated through the cultural hierarchy. It engaged lovers of art, language, music and Celtic studies, as well as popular culture. The Táin became an Irish Iliad, with Cúchulainn as a Superhero reincarnating to a new age of rock, cartoons and animation.
The images le Brocquy called 'shadows thrown by the text' became so iconic that it is almost impossible now to imagine The Táin differently. Yet no one had visualised the full saga previously and no artist from Ireland had engaged so thoroughly with pieces of writing in so collaborative a way. Le Brocquy made hundreds of drawings, many of which appear in the de luxe and limited editions, with a handful printed in the paperback and a precious twenty in these tapestries. Communication was difficult in those pre-digital days because he was in France and Miller was in Dublin, so that many key design decisions relied on sending letters through the post.
Le Brocquy's innovative, daring approach cast the saga as a virtual alphabet composed of spontaneous, inky letters. This shows immediately in Army Massing, where marks cascade in rivulets that resemble both chain mail and hand-writing, and in the H-shaped Cúchulainn confronting Ferdia. Different ages and cultures whisper through the images - and through these twenty tapestries made during 1998-2000, when le Brocquy collaborated with maître-lissier René Duché, whose firm had recently been awarded the honour Meilleur Ouvrier de France. Cuchulainn's Warp Spasm, for example, speaks both of calligraphic marks from Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Yves Klein's bodily-marked Anthropometries, as well as cave paintings traced by prehistoric peoples.
The translation into tapestry, via le Brocquy's Táin lithographs, crested on the momentum from oral to written traditions, from drama to poetry and from visual culture to music. Duché's subtly-textured cottons and wools freed le Brocquy's black-on-white marks into a textured, sensual material that illuminates the sense of a blot or stain without definite edges, which is what he wanted. Here, the statuesque shapes let le Brocquy grow the book's relatively modest scale into a life-affirming series of interconnected images that speak to each other like letters in a phrase or sentence. They belong together. The tapestries were last seen at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2003, when they were acquired under the Heritage Tax Scheme. It is profoundly moving to see them together in these weeks after the artist's passing on 25 April 2012. Le Brocquy's hand reaches out through them.

Medb Ruane
April 2012

Payment & Shipping

Payment

Accepted forms of payment: MasterCard, Money Order / Cashiers Check, Other, Personal Check, Visa, Wire Transfer

Shipping

The buyer will be responsible for all removal, storage and insurance charges in respect of any lot which has not been collected within fourteen days of the date of sale.

Auction Details

Important Irish Art

by
Whyte's
May 21, 2012, 06:00 PM GMT

Royal Dublin Society (RDS) Anglesea Road Entrance, Ballsbridge, Dublin, D04 HY94, IE

Terms

Buyer's Premium

20.0%

Bidding Increments

From:To:Increment:
€0€99€10
€100€699€20
€700€1,299€50
€1,300€2,999€100
€3,000€6,999€200
€7,000€12,999€500
€13,000€29,999€1,000
€30,000€109,999€2,000
€110,000€499,999€5,000
€500,000+€10,000

Terms and Conditions of Sale Notice

Whyte & Sons Auctioneers Limited, trading as Whyte's, hereinafter called "the auctioneer" exercises all reasonable care to ensure that all descriptions are reliable and accurate, and that each item is genuine unless the contrary is indicated. However, the descriptions are not intended to be, are not and are not to be taken to be, statements of fact or representations of fact in relation to the lot. They are statements of the opinion of the auctioneers, and attention is particularly drawn to clause 5 set out below. Comments and opinions, which may be found in or on lots as labels, notes, lists, catalogue prices, or any other means of expression, do not constitute part of lot descriptions and are not to be taken as such unless they are made or specifically verified by the auctioneers. Clause 1 (a) Each lot is put up subject to any reserve price imposed by the vendor (b) Subject to sub-clause (a) of this clause, the highest bidder for each lot shall be the purchaser thereof (c) If any dispute arises as to the highest bidder the auctioneer shall have absolute discretion to determine the dispute and may put up again and re-sell the lot in respect of which the dispute arises. Clause 2 (a) The bidding and advances shall be regulated by and at the absolute discretion of the auctioneer and he shall have the right to refuse any bid or bids. NOTE: Where an agent bids, even on behalf of a disclosed client, the auctioneer nevertheless has the right at his discretion to refuse any such bid. (b) The purchaser of each lot shall immediately on its sale, if required by the auctioneer, give him the name and address of the purchaser and pay to the auctioneer at his discretion the whole or part of the purchase money. If the purchaser of any lot fails to comply with any such requirement the auctioneer may put up again and re-sell the lot; if upon such re-sale a lower price is obtained than was obtained on the first sale the purchaser in default on the first sale shall make good the difference in price and expenses of re-sale which shall become a debt due from him. (c) Where an agent purchases on behalf of an undisclosed client such agent shall be personally liable for payment of the purchase money to the auctioneer and for safe delivery of the lot to the said client. Clause 3 (a) The auctioneer reserves the rights to bid on behalf of clients including vendors, but shall not be liable for errors or omissions in executing instructions to bid. (b) The auctioneer reserves the rights, before or during a sale, to group together lots belonging to the same vendor, to split up and to withdraw any lot or lots at the auctioneer's absolute discretion and without giving any reason in any case. (c) The auctioneer acts as agent only, and therefore shall not be liable for any default of the purchaser or vendor. Clause 4 (a) Each lot shall be at the purchaser's risk from the fall of the hammer and shall be paid for in full before delivery and taken away at his expense within one day of the sale. The buyer will be responsible for all removal, storage and insurance charges in respect of any lot which has not been collected within one day of the date of sale. (b) If any purchaser fails to pay in full for any lot within 21 days of the date of sale such lot may at any time thereafter at the auctioneer's discretion be put up for sale by auction again or sold privately; if upon such re-sale a lower price is obtained than was obtained on the first sale the purchaser in default on the first sale shall make good the difference in price and the expenses of re-sale which shall become debt due from him. (c) Interest at 2 per cent per month and legal costs (if any) for recovery of monies due shall be payable by the purchaser on any overdue account. Clause 5 (a) All lots are made available for inspection before each sale and each buyer, by making a bid, acknowledges that he has satisfied himself as to the physical condition, age and catalogue description of each lot (including but not restricted to whether the lot is damaged or has been repaired or restored). (b) All lots are sold with all faults and imperfections and errors of description and the Auctioneer and its employees, servants or agents shall not be responsible for any error of description or for the condition or authenticity of any lot, save for Clause 5 (c) below. Written or verbal condition reports may be supplied by the Auctioneer on request but these are merely statements of opinion, and any error or omission in these reports may not be taken as grounds for a cancellation of sale or refund of any part of the purchase price or the cost of any repairs to the lot or lots reported on (c) A purchaser shall be at liberty to reject any lot if he - (i) gives the auctioneer written notice of intention to question the genuineness of the lot within seven days from the date of sale; AND (ii) proves that the lot is a deliberate forgery and (iii) returns to the auctioneer within 20 days from the date of sale the lot in the same condition as it was at the time of sale; provided that the auctioneer may, at his discretion, on receiving a request in writing from the purchaser, extend for a reasonable period the time for return of the lot to enable it to be submitted to expertisation. NOTE: The onus of proving a lot to be a deliberate forgery is on the purchaser. (d) Where a lot has been submitted to expertisation, all costs of such expertisation shall be paid by the person who retains the certificate of expertisation and item or items to which the certificate relates. (e) Where the purchaser of a lot discharges the onus and acts in accordance with sub-clause (b) of this clause, the auctioneer shall rescind the sale and repay to the purchaser the purchase money paid by him in respect of the lot. (f) No lot shall be rejected if, subsequent to the sale, it has been marked by an expert committee or treated by any other process unless the auctioneer's permission to subject the lot to such treatment has first been obtained in writing. (g) Any lot listed as a "collection, range, portfolio etc." or stated to comprise or contain a collection or range of items which are not described shall be put up for sale not subject to rejection and shall be taken by the purchaser with all (if any) faults, lack of genuineness and errors of description and numbers of items in the lot, and the purchaser shall have no right to reject the lot; except that, notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this sub-clause, where before a sale a person intending to bid at the sale gives notice in writing to, and satisfies the auctioneer that any such lot contains any item or items undescribed in the sale catalogue and that person specifically describes that item or those items in that notice, then that item or those items shall, as between the auctioneer and that person, to be taken to form part of the description of the lot. Clause 6 The respective rights and obligations of the parties shall be governed and interpreted by Irish law, and the buyer hereby submits to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Irish Courts. SPECIAL CONDITIONS (a) The buyer shall pay the Auctioneer a commission at the rate of 16.52% (which excludes VAT at the prevailing rate under The Margin Scheme and which is not reclaimable (b) The Auctioneer or its employees, servants or agents may, on request organise packing and shipping of lots purchased or may order on the buyer's behalf third parties to pack or ship purchases. Under no circumstances does the Auctioneer accept any liability whatsoever for any loss or damage howsoever occasioned in the course of such service. (c) The buyer authorises the Auctioneer to use any photographs or illustrations of any lot purchased for any or all purposes as the Auctioneer may require. The placing of a bid will be taken as full agreement to all the above conditions. WHYTE & SONS AUCTIONEERS LIMITED 38 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2

Credit Cards, continued

NB: There is a surcharge of 1.5% for payments by Credit Card, - no charge for Laser/Maestro/Switch/Solo Debit Card payments.

Condition

Whyte & Sons Auctioneers Limited, trading as Whyte's, hereinafter called "the auctioneer" exercises all reasonable care to ensure that all descriptions are reliable and accurate, and that each item is genuine unless the contrary is indicated. However, the descriptions are not intended to be, are not and are not to be taken to be, statements of fact or representations of fact in relation to the lot. They are statements of the opinion of the auctioneers, and attention is particularly drawn to clause 5 in our full Terms & Conditions. Comments and opinions, which may be found in or on lots as labels, notes, lists, catalogue prices, or any other means of expression, do not constitute part of lot descriptions and are not to be taken as such unless they are made or specifically verified by the auctioneers.

Premium & Taxes

The buyer shall pay the Auctioneer a commission at the rate of 16.52% (which excludes VAT at the prevailing rate under The Margin Scheme and which is not reclaimable). This amounts to a gross rate of 20% inclusive. There is NO extra charge for bidding on line.

Payment

Each lot shall be paid for in full before delivery and taken away at his/her expense within fourteen days of the sale.

Shipping

The buyer will be responsible for all removal, storage and insurance charges in respect of any lot which has not been collected within fourteen days of the date of sale.