Antiques: Art, jewels and other treasures sparkle at auctions

Paintings, clocks, chimneypieces and chairs at Sheppard's Gems in the Attic sale and Morgan O'Driscoll's online Irish art event

'Composition' by Evie Hone at Morgan O'Driscoll's auction, left, a pair of parcel gilt and painted elbow chairs at Sheppard's, top right, a pair of art deco silver and mother-of-pearl belt buckles at Sheppard's, below, centre, and 'Before the Storm', Sherkin by Majella O'Neill Collins at Morgan O'Driscoll's, below right.

A neoclassical marble chimneypiece, a pair of parcel gilt elbow chairs, a Georgian lacquered longcase clock and an 18th-century brass door knocker are among the treasures to be found at Sheppard's Gems in the Attic sale in Durrow on Tuesday (January 28).

On offer are works of art from the attics, stables and storerooms of important clients of Sheppards. The 663 lots — ranging in estimate from €20-€40 (for a bottle of Chateau Pessan St Hilaire 1992) to €4,000-€6,000 for the neoclassical marble chimneypiece — are not at all typical of the half-forgotten contents of your average attic storage space.

A pair of art deco silver and mother-of-pearl belt buckles at Sheppard's.

There is everything from a 16th-century gold thread and silk embroidery work The Virgin and the Angels (€500-€800) and a mixed-media pieceThe Old Claddagh, Galway by John Behan (€600-€800) to a Tibetan turquoise encrusted box and cover (€50-€80), a Berber wall-hanging (€200-€300), a Dublin 19th century side table (€1,400-€1,800), a pair of art deco belt buckles (€100-€150) and a pair of 19th-century lacquered panels €1,400-€1,800).

A pair of parcel gilt and painted elbow chairs at Sheppard's.

Collectibles include a Chinese celadon double gourd vase, a tapestry of Nefertiti, a 19th-century travelling chess set, a Baule mask from Africa, a 19th-century ormolu and champleve enamel casket, a Meissen bowl, a c500 BC Greek pottery ewer, two ostrich eggs on wooden stands, a green jade foo dog, a 19th-century Italian glazed pottery relief plaque and a pair of 19th-century Japanese ceremonial chairs.

The sale is on view in Durrow from 10am to 4pm today, tomorrow and Monday and collectors are bound to find numerous objects to whet the appetite in the online catalogue.

'Composition' by Evie Hone at Morgan O'Driscoll's Irish art online auction.

The painting Composition by Evie Hone and a bronze Cubist Bull by John Behan give some sense of the depth and breadth of Morgan O'Driscoll's Irish art online auction which runs until Monday evening (January 27). 

'Before the Storm', Sherkin by Majella O'Neill Collins at Morgan O'Driscoll's Irish art online auction.

Offering 255 lots in total the sale features highly collectible artists like Donald Teskey and Majella O'Neill Collins. There is art by Donald Teskey, John Shinnors, William Scott, Liam O'Neill, Graham Knuttel, Kenneth Webb and James Brohan among the more expensively estimated lots.

International artists featured include Mr Brainwash, Damien Hirst, Salvador Dali, Jeff Koons, Sonia Delauney and Andy Warhol with everything from a mixed-media sculpture of a puppy by Koons to an offset lithograph of Queen Elizabeth by Andy Warhol from his reigning queens series and a set of six numbered Limoges plates from a large edition by Dali entitled Conquest du Cosmos.

There is art by Pauline Bewick, Christy Brown, Paul Henry, Percy French, Adam Buck, Elizabeth Magill, Markey Robinson, Adam Buck, Sean Scully, Barrie Cooke, Lady Kate Dobbin, Sir John Lavery, Harry Kernoff and a variety of other artists. The catalogue is online and the sale is on view in Skibbereen from 11am to 3pm on Monday.