PORTRAIT OF DANIEL O'CONNELL
Sir Martin Archer Shee PRA (1769-1850)His sale, Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York, 10-11 May 1899;
Whence purchased by John D. Crimmins, financier and philanthropist;
By whom donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 1899;
Deaccessioned by the Metropolitan and sold through Sotheby’s, New York, Old Master and 19th Century European Art, 26 January 2008, lot 131;
Private collection;
Whyte's, 29 September 2008, lot 143;
Private collection
The Champlain Educator; vol. 23, 1904, pp. 305;
George H. Story, Illustrated Catalogue: Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, 1905, pp. 159-60;
David C. Preyer, The Art of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, 1909;
Katharine Baetjer, European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by artists born before 1865. A summary catalogue, 1995, illustrated p. 202
Whilst O’Connell’s baldness is today largely forgotten, in his own time it was a widely known fact thanks to the jibes of satirists and political opponents. In one cartoon, titled The Irish Agitator Tossed by the Papal Bull, O’Connell is sent flying with his hat and wig going in opposite directions, his bald pate exposed to the world. A correspondent for the New York Times described with some relish witnessing O’Connell leave a courtroom, remove his barrister robes and bar wig and don a “curly, nutty-brown ‘jasey’” to cover his baldness.1 O’Connell himself was capable of a joke about his appearance. In one election contest, he commented on the rather plain appearance of his opponent, a conservative barrister by the name of John B. West. Thus taunted, West replied, “it’s all very well for Mr O’Connell to attack me on my appearance, but I can tell you, if you saw Mr O’Connell without his wig, he does not present a face which is much to boast of”, whereupon O’Connell is said to have whipped off his wig for the crowd’s great appreciation'.
The artist, Sir Martin Archer Shee, one of Ireland’s most successful portrait painters and President of the Royal Academy in London, first met O’Connell in 1825, during the sitting of a Parliamentary Committee. O’Connell was usually reluctant to sit for portraits, but granted Shee the sittings presumably as a compliment to the distinguished Irishman, one of the few Catholics to have forged a successful career in London. The portrait was probably executed in London in or around 1825-30.
The earliest known owner of the work was the Hon. W. S. Campbell, United States Consul to Holland (1843-62) and Consul General at Dresden (1862-71), who, according to contemporary accounts, was a well known “connoisseur in many a European art centre”.3 Campbell’s collection was sold in 1899 at the Fifth Avenue Galleries in New York, where financier and philanthropist John D. Crimmins purchased the portrait of O’Connell. Shortly afterwards Crimmins was approached by James Boothby Burke Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy, who offered him a sum between $1,500 and $1,600 for the work.4 Burke Roche may have been acting on behalf of an institution, as five years later a New York magazine reported that Crimmins had “nobly prevented” the portrait’s return to the British Museum.5 In any case Crimmins declined the offer and instead promptly donated the portrait to the Metropolitan Museum.
It first went on exhibit at the Metropolitan in 1900, and was later loaned out to Gracie Mansion in Omaha (1950-54) and the American Bar Association (1961-78). Successive catalogues to the Metropolitan Museum collection document the work. In 1909 it was described as “an excellent character study, suggesting mobility of countenance and fiery temper”, and in 1995 it was illustrated in the summary catalogue of European Paintings by artists born before 1865. However, in recent times the museum staff, whilst researching their collections, compared Shee’s portrait to other known portraits of O’Connell, and were concerned to note the receding hairline. Not realising that the statesman was in fact bald, they decided to de-accession the work, and sold it through Sotheby’s in New York. Since then, a fuller history of the painting’s provenance has come to light, as have the facts of O’Connell’s baldness, enabling the portrait to be once more fully identified as that of one of Ireland’s greatest statesmen, Daniel O’Connell.
1 New York Times, 27 December 1874
2 James E. McGee, Irish Wit and Humor: Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O’Leary and O’Connell, F. Pustet and Co., New York, Cincinnati, c.1886
3 New York Times, 10 May 1899
4 Letter from John D. Crimmins to Mr MarQuand, Metropolitan Museum, New York, undated, c.1899, Metropolitan Museum archives
5 The Champlain Educator, vol. 23, 1904, p. 305
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(a) Each lot is put up subject to any reserve price imposed by the vendor
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Clause 2
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Clause 3
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Clause 4
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(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
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(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 20% (Art sales) or 24% (Collectibles sales). The Buyer's Premium is added to the hammer price of all lots and is subject to VAT at the prevailing rate.
(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 AND SONS AUCTIONEERS LIMITED, 2022
We hold two types of auction - TIMED and LIVE SALEROOM
1. TIMED AUCTIONS
WHAT IS A TIMED AUCTION?Timed auctions do not have an auctioneer calling the bids – there’s just a bidding time frame and whoever bids highest during the time frame wins. Each lot can be bid on for a defined time period. At the end of this period, the bidder who has submitted the highest bid wins the lot, provided the bid exceeds the reserve price. You tell us the most you’re willing to pay – and we’ll bid intelligently for you, only bidding enough for you to meet the reserve or stay in the lead. Don’t worry, your maximum bid is not disclosed, and is held in confidence on our bidding system.
WHEN ONLINE BIDDING STARTS - YOU CAN LEAVE BIDS online and your bid will start at one step above the previous bid or at the start price if no other bid. You will be notified by email if you get outbid before the auction starts.
ONCE THE AUCTION BEGINS TO FINISH, ON THE DATE AND TIME SPECIFIED, THE EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS CEASE and you should follow the auction on-line to see how your bids are doing. Make sure you have logged in if you wish to bid.
WHEN THE AUCTION BEGINS TO FINISH ON THE DATE AND TIME SPECIFIED,THE BIDDING FOR EACH LOT REMAINS OPEN FOR 45 SECONDS at a start price determined by the reserve or bids already received. Each lot will be open and remain open for bidding until its end time is reached; the end time will be extended by 45 seconds if another bid is received. At the end time, if there are no further bids and the highest bid received equals or exceeds the reserve price the lot is sold to highest bidder.
The Buyers Premium for Art sales is 20% plus VAT ( 24.6% gross). The Buyers Premium for Collectibles sales is 24% plus VAT (29.52% gross). The Buyers Premium will be added to your winning bid amount. Your invoice will detail all the payment, collection and shipping particulars.
2. LIVE SALEROOM AUCTION:
If you can't attend the auction in the saleroom you can email or post or telephone bids to us, or you can book a telephone line to bid during the sale. Contact us on +353 16762888 or bids@whytes.ie
To bid on-line at a Live Saleroom Auction:
• Log in or register bid.whytes.ie
• Visit the online auction catalogue
• Find the lot number you are interested in.
· The current highest bid will be displayed
• The minimum bid required to beat the highest bid will also be shown.
· You can place your bid. The screen will show the new highest bid and will indicate if that bid is yours. Note: if a previous bidder has left a bid that equals yours the previous bidder will win the lot unless you outbid them. If the screen doesn’t confirm that your bid is winning you will need to bid again if you wish to buy the lot. Don’t worry -the system will not allow you to bid against yourself.
• The live auction will begin at the announced date and time and will be sold in lot number order by the auctioneer.
• Invoices will be issued to successful bidders on the next working day after the sale has ended.
BIDDING STEPS:
Up to €300 x€10
Up to €700 x €20
Up to €1,300 x €50
Up to €3,000 x €100
Up to €7,000 x €200
Up to €13,000 x €500
Up to €30,000 x €1,000
Up to €40,000 x €2,000
Up to €70,000 x €2,000
Up to €130,000 x €5,000
Up to €500,000 x €10,000
A FEW TIPS FOR ABSENTEE BIDDERS:
Bid the maximum price you would pay for the lot; we will try and secure the lot for you at the lowest possible price. For instance if you bid €2,000 on a lot and the highest other bid we receive is €1,200 you get it for €1,250. Most people tend to bid in round numbers, e.g. €500. It’s often a good idea to bid an odd number, e.g. €520, or €540 which will outbid an even number. Check the results the day after the sale: these are published on our website www.whytes.ie at about 10am on the day after the sale. Successful bidders are also notified of results by mail.
TIE BIDS: if two or more equal bids are received the lot will be sold to the first received.
The Buyers Premium for Art sales is 20% plus VAT ( 24.6% gross). The Buyers Premium for Collectibles sales is 24% plus VAT (29.52% gross). The Buyers Premium will be added to your winning bid amount. Your invoice will detail all the payment, collection and shipping particulars.