Scotland

Emily Walsh is managing director of The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh, which deals in Scottish art from 1650 to the present.

Topping by some way an offering of 300 pieces of jewellery at Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) Edinburgh sale was a Persian gold and niello decorated Esther Scroll holder.

More of a curiosity than a clock but a decorator’s dream, a life-size caricature of a smiling Chinese man clutching a willow-pattern plate with gilt dragon hands emerged in the Ayr rooms of Thomas R Callan (17.5% buyer’s premium).

Sotheby’s believes it has found a missing piece from the Lewis chessmen hoard – the cache of 12th or 13th century walrus ivory carvings that chiefly resides in the British Museum.

The Watch Sale at Fellows in Birmingham on June 18 includes arare Rolex Oyster Cosmograph Daytona chronograph with ‘reverse panda’ white on black dial.

One of the last oil paintings by Scottish artist William McTaggart (1835-1910) is on offer in a show of highlights at The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh.

Christina Jansen is managing director at The Scottish Gallery, established in Edinburgh in 1842. It now specialises in emerging and established as well as historical artists.

James Ware (1859-1913), a merchant navy captain, turned to missionary work following his arrival in Shanghai.

An early illustration by the ‘Glasgow Girl’ Jessie Marion King (1875-1949) emerged as one of the high points of a Decorative Arts: Design from 1860 sale at Edinburgh saleroom Lyon & Turnbull (25/20% buyer’s premium) on April 3.

Something of a roll call for the great and good across the British 19th-20th century arts scene, Lyon & Turnbull’s (25% buyer’s premium) Decorative Arts: Design Since 1860 sale included such names as George Washington Jack, Sir Alfred Gilbert, Christopher Dresser, William de Morgan and Robert Bartlett.

Underlined by a £65,000 bid for a table cabinet, the attraction of Indo-Portuguese furniture – that combines familiar European forms with the exotic lure of the East – is as strong today as it was in centuries past.