SUNDAY (DECEMBER 11th)
Matthews Auction Rooms, Oldcastle, Co Meath. Lot 200, an art deco diamond (4carat) solitaire ring, €18,000 (€20,000-€30,000); Lot 56, a gents white gold Cartier ring, featuring a citrine stone, €1,250 (€1,200-€1,800).
Hegarty's Auction Rooms, The Bypass, Bandon, Co Cork. A 17th-century Irish silver tankard, described as "date mark is slightly rubbed, buy possibly made in Dublin in 1694-95", sold for €7,000 (€3,000-€5,000).
TUESDAY (DECEMBER 13th)
John Weldon Auctioneers, Cow's Lane, Temple bar, Dublin. A set of six 1970s Irish silver dinner plates, total weight over 5kg, with an estimate described as "just over the scrap price for silver", €2,300 (€1,800-€2,400).
Adam's, St Stephen's Green, Dublin. Christmas Irish art and literature auction. Lot 56, A Christmas Carol (oil on canvas) by Augustus Edwin Mulready, €1,300 (€800-€1,200). At Sotheby's, London: the original key to Oscar Wilde's prison cell at Reading Gaol sold for £15,000 – three times the median estimate (£4,000 and £6,000).
Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers. Rare books, literature, manuscripts, maps and works of art auction at the Gresham Hotel, Dublin – 84 per cent of lots sold. Lot 627, A Series of Eight Sketches in Colour, together with a Chart of the Route of the Voyage of HMS Investigator during the Discovery of the North West Passage by Capt Samuel Cresswell, €24,000 (€15,000-€20,000; Lot 514, an "excessively rare" copy of A Call to the Unfaithful Professors of Truth by John Estaugh, printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1744 in Philadelphia, €12,000 (€7,000-€10,000); Lot 686, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, a 17th-century Latin tract on The Law of War and Peace by Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius and signed by "Jon. Swift" (Jonathan Swift), €9,000 (€10,000-€15,000); Lot 461, rare maps of 18th-century Dublin streets, €5,000 (€3,000-€4,000); Lot 765, a watercolour titled Paddy, by Edith Somerville of her nephew "Patrick Coghill, seated on a stool holding pencil and copybook, under the watchful eye of his pet Yorkshire terrier", €2,300 (€2,500-€3,500). Among the unsold was Lot 675, The Works of Shakespeare In Eight Volumes, described as the first printing of Shakespeare's works in Ireland, estimated at €7,000-€10,000. For more results see fonsiemealy.ie
WEDNESDAY (DECEMBER 14th)
O’Reilly’s Auction Rooms, Francis Street, Dublin 8. Lot 167, an 18 carat gold 1960s diamond bracelet by Piaget, €7,000 (€7,000-€8,000). Lot 173, an antique (circa 1900) five-stone diamond ring with 3.20 carat of “graduated, old-cut diamonds”, €6,800 (€6,500-€7,000).
