IMPORTANT JEWELS & WATCHES

Consign now to our next auction of Important Jewels & Watches that will take place in Sydney in May 2024.

Smith & Singer ended the year on a spectacular note with the final auction of 2023 achieving outstanding results for vendors of Important Jewels & Watches.  Pieces by international and Australian designers, including Bulgari, Cartier, Paspaley and Rolex, alongside impressive diamonds and emeralds, performed particularly well.  

A highlight was this magnificent pair of golden pearl and diamond earrings (estimate $9,000–12,000, sold for $16,250, pictured above).

Smith & Singer offer unique and unparalleled access to local and international collectors.  Contact our specialists now for a confidential appraisal.

You may also use our appraisal estimate form.

IMPORTANT JEWELS & WATCHES

Consign now to our next auction of Important Jewels & Watches that will take place in Sydney in May 2024.

Smith & Singer ended the year on a spectacular note with the final auction of 2023 achieving outstanding results for vendors of Important Jewels & Watches.  Pieces by international and Australian designers, including Bulgari, Cartier, Paspaley and Rolex, alongside impressive diamonds and emeralds, performed particularly well.  

A highlight was this highly desirable 18ct pink gold and diamond ‘Love’ bracelet, Cartier, 2021 (estimate $25,000–35,000, sold for $52,500, pictured above).

Smith & Singer offer unique and unparalleled access to local and international collectors.  Contact our specialists now for a confidential appraisal.

You may also use our appraisal estimate form.

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

Consign now to our April 2024 auction of Important Australian Art.

In 2023, Smith & Singer continued our market leadership of art at auction and private sales in Australia and established 6 of the 10 highest prices at auction, including a new auction record for Australian sculpture.

Our November 2023 auction achieved a sale total of $10,144,374 (including buyer’s premium) that combined excellent sold rates of 112% (by value) and 79% (by volume) combined with outstanding performances against estimates.

Building on the resounding success of our auctions of fewer works of higher value, combined with unparalleled in-house scholarship, our carefully curated April 2024 auction will include significant examples of historical, modern and contemporary Australian art.

To participate in this momentous sale, please contact our highly experienced specialists for a confidential appraisal.

You may also use our appraisal estimate form. 

PENLEIGH BOYD

Smith & Singer are delighted to offer Penleigh Boyd's Silver Light, Hawkesbury River 1922 for Private Sale.

During his lifetime, and in the decades following his premature death at the age of thirty-three, Penleigh Boyd received the greatest recognition for his evocative depictions of the Australian landscape shown under heightened atmospheric conditions.

Boyd’s life and art was inextricably connected to the First World War.  Serving with the Australian Imperial Forces in France, he was badly gassed at Ypres in September 1917, and convalesced in England, before returning home to Melbourne in March 1918.  Although surviving his wartime experiences, Boyd’s death in a motor car accident in 1923, inadvertently aligned him to the ‘lost generation’ of young men killed in action, his loss mourned by the art and wider community.

Penleigh Boyd’s river and seascapes – including the Yarra and Hawkesbury Rivers – offer a reaffirmation of the beauty, purity and truth found in nature.  These harmonious and peaceful landscapes – bathed in an almost ethereal light – provide a contrast between the beauty of the natural world and the sinister face of war.  Boyd’s home at Warrandyte, nestled on the Yarra River twenty-four kilometres north-east of Melbourne, remained intact as an environment which ‘could induce the atmosphere of tranquil detachment from external and material things which I believe is considered necessary for the production of great art.’ (Penleigh Boyd, Salvage: Pictures and Impressions of the Western Front, The British Australasian, London, 1918, reprinted Australian War Memorial Facsimile Editions, Canberra, 1983)

Imbued with a strong sense of place, identify and emotion, Boyd’s paintings such as Silver Light, Hawkesbury River, assisted in the creation of a national iconography that remains as poignant and meaningful more than a century later.

IMPORTANT JEWELS & WATCHES

Consign now to our next auction of Important Jewels & Watches that will take place in Sydney in May 2024.

Smith & Singer ended the year on a spectacular note with the final auction of 2023 achieving outstanding results for vendors of Important Jewels & Watches.  Pieces by international and Australian designers, including Bulgari, Cartier, Paspaley and Rolex, alongside impressive diamonds and emeralds, performed particularly well.  

A highlight from 2023 was this magnificent 18ct gold and diamond ring (estimate $110,000–140,000, sold for $131,250, pictured above).

Smith & Singer offer unique and unparalleled access to local and international collectors.  Contact our specialists now for a confidential appraisal.

You may also use our appraisal estimate form.

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

Consign now to our April 2024 auction of Important Australian Art.

In 2023, Smith & Singer continued our market leadership of art at auction and private sales in Australia and established 6 of the 10 highest prices at auction, including a new auction record for Australian sculpture.

Our November 2023 auction achieved a sale total of $10,144,374 (including buyer’s premium) that combined excellent sold rates of 112% (by value) and 79% (by volume) combined with outstanding performances against estimates.

Building on the resounding success of our auctions of fewer works of higher value, combined with unparalleled in-house scholarship, our carefully curated April 2024 auction will include significant examples of historical, modern and contemporary Australian art.

To participate in this momentous sale, please contact our highly experienced specialists for a confidential appraisal.

You may also use our appraisal estimate form. 

NORA HEYSEN

Smith & Singer are delighted to offer Nora Heysen's Freesias 1985 for Private Sale.

Daughter of renowned landscape painter Hans Heysen, Nora Heysen established her own reputation as a distinguished portrait and still-life painter, becoming the first woman to win the Archibald Prize and to be appointed an Australian Official War Artist during the Second World War.

Born at Hahndorf, South Australia, the fourth child of Hans and Selma Heysen, Nora received her earliest art training from her father. At fifteen she commenced studies at the School of Fine Arts, Adelaide, under F. Millward Grey, where she received a traditional academic training, learning to draw from plaster casts and live models.  By the age of twenty, Heysen’s paintings had been purchased by the state galleries of New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.

Freesias is a major composition in Heysen’s career, brimming with shimmering light amidst a joyous profusion of delicate brushwork and refined colour.  The work features in numerous publications on the artist and was included in the artist’s retrospective exhibitions held at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, in 2000-2001 and most recently in the travelling exhibition Nora Heysen: Light and Life held in 2009-2010.

NORA HEYSEN 1911-2003 
Freesias 1985
oil on canvas
50 x 61 cm
For private sale 
© Lou Klepac

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

Consign now to our April 2024 auction of Important Australian Art.

In 2023, Smith & Singer continued our market leadership of art at auction and private sales in Australia and established 6 of the 10 highest prices at auction, including a new auction record for Australian sculpture.

Our November 2023 auction achieved a sale total of $10,144,374 (including buyer’s premium) that combined excellent sold rates of 112% (by value) and 79% (by volume) combined with outstanding performances against estimates.

Building on the resounding success of our auctions of fewer works of higher value, combined with unparalleled in-house scholarship, our carefully curated April 2024 auction will include significant examples of historical, modern and contemporary Australian art.

To participate in this momentous sale, please contact our highly experienced specialists for a confidential appraisal.

You may also use our appraisal estimate form. 

John Kelly: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is now open at 14-16 Collins Street, Melbourne. 

During the past two and a half decades John Kelly has developed a distinguished reputation in Australia and internationally for his work that combines his unique intellect and humour.  Bristol born, Kelly moved to Australia with his parents in 1965, the year of his birth.  Kelly now resides in West Cork, Ireland and has English, Australian and Irish nationality.  It was during his time in Australia that Kelly developed his affinity with one of his most recognised subjects, William Dobell’s camouflaged cows, created when, during World War II, Dobell was commissioned to make paper-mâché cows with the purpose of confusing enemy aircraft about the locations of Australian airbases. 

This significant exhibition will feature 15 major paintings and sculptures by the artist and will be open to the public Monday to Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm, 5-24 February 2024 at 14-16 Collins Street, Melbourne.

To enquire about the availability of works in the exhibition, please contact our specialists below.

John Kelly is represented exclusively by Smith & Singer.

The digital catalogue for the forthcoming selling exhibition John Kelly: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at Smith & Singer is now available to view online. 

During the past two and a half decades John Kelly has developed a distinguished reputation in Australia and internationally for his work that combines his unique intellect and humour.  Bristol born, Kelly moved to Australia with his parents in 1965, the year of his birth.  Kelly now resides in West Cork, Ireland and has English, Australian and Irish nationality.  It was during his time in Australia that Kelly developed his affinity with one of his most recognised subjects, William Dobell’s camouflaged cows, created when, during World War II, Dobell was commissioned to make paper-mâché cows with the purpose of confusing enemy aircraft about the locations of Australian airbases. 

This significant exhibition will feature 15 major paintings and sculptures by the artist and will be open to the public Monday to Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm, 5-24 February 2024 at 14-16 Collins Street, Melbourne.

To enquire about the availability of works in the exhibition, please contact our specialists below.

John Kelly is represented exclusively by Smith & Singer.