Edinburgh

August is the month when Scotland takes it up a notch while the rest of the art world has a breather.

This watercolour, below, by Frederic Whiting (1874-1962) took a multi-estimate £2500 at Thomson Roddick’s (15% buyer’s premium) Edinburgh saleroom on August 9.

Galloway Fairs’ last event at Arley Hall featured the sale of a silver epergne from Highland Antiques for a five-figure sum. Hopes are high that a similar result will be achieved at this month’s fair at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh.

One of a collection of ornithological and other natural history works from a country house library offered in an Edinburgh sale was a scarce, complete copy of a work that created a bitter fall-out between author and illustrator.

From lighthouses and ships in distress to labourers and landscapes, the two exhibitions at The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh this month celebrate three centuries of Scotland’s art.

Chinese ceramics tend to dominate Asian sales in the UK, but occasionally other mediums get to share the limelight.

Once-fashionable drum tables took a big hit during the furniture slump and while the best can do well, others can be picked up cheaply.

The feast from the east that that has put bread (and some Michelin-starred meals) on the table of dealers and auctioneers for more than a decade continues to do so at sales from Scotland to Surrey.

One of the smallest but most eye-catching lots at the Oriental sale at Bonhams Edinburgh (25% buyer’s premium) was two 4¼in (11cm) high Manchu officials’ bronze seals.

In the year of the 150th anniversary of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s birth, Lyon & Turnbull has sold the very key used to open his design masterpiece, The Glasgow School of Art, in 1899.

One says Scottish rather than Scotch except when one is referring to the spirit – or indeed, motor spirit as evident at the Edinburgh rooms of Thomson Roddick Scottish Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium).

A collection of Outsider art produced in a former psychiatric hospital in north London will be offered for sale at Edinburgh auction house Lyon & Turnbull.

Lyon & Turnbull has appointed Philip Smith, former head of modern & post-war art and design at Mallams, to the newly created role of associate director for modern art and design.

“It’s not the age or pedigree – it’s the look of the piece.” The phrase became less a heresy and more a cliché during the latter years of the furniture boom of blessed memory, when the increasingly influential decorator trade was spending substantial sums on 19th and early 20th century reproductions.

An album of Indian photographs sold for £32,000 in Edinburgh provided ATG’s Pick of the Week in the previous issue (No 2331), but there was much more on offer in that 550-lot Scottish sale.

Sold at £6000 in a recent Scottish sale was an early golfing item. The 1839 edition of Rules of the Game of Golf adopted by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers shown below was still in the original wrappers and bore an 1852 ownership inscription of one Henry Wells.

The generally encouraging start to the year enjoyed by English auctioneers extends to Scotland where Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) enjoyed a buoyant season-opener.