WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART MONDAY 2 DECEMBER 2024 FROM 6PM

129 IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART · 2 DECEMBER 2024 AT 6PM 95 Rory Breslin (b.1963) MAY MARINE MASK bronze; (no. 1 from an edition of 3) signed and numbered on the right reverse 27 by 15 by 12in. (68.6 by 38.1 by 30.5cm) The Clew Bay Marine Series are a series of bronze ‘seascapes’, chronicling by month the wealth and variety of sea life in Clew Bay. Eyes fixed and stoic in countenance, the girl’s forehead has a layered diadem of Cluisíns or Black scallop shells, notable from ancient times for having played a prominent part in man’s religious, artistic and architectural development. Hemming in these seashells and running bilaterally down to the base of the mask is the knobbly Rock Wrack, Fucus vesiculosus, the original source of iodine. This wrack on its descent envelops its cousin, the HornedWrack, Fucus Ceranoides on the cheeks of the young face while below the chin it safely nestles a pair of the rare short-snouted seahorses and a pair of clams, the former symbols of good fortune and protection and the latter associated with the goddess Aphrodite. Above the forehead two mottled muscular spotted dogfish arch downwards, sentinels of the overall aspect of the work. These cat-eyed sharks cushion the apex of the piece, the Clare Island Puffin. €4,000-€6,000 (£3,360-£5,040 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot95