Scotland

UK: ONE CHART was very creased and there was a stain on the frontispiece that penetrated to the title page and early leaves, but the copy of Bligh’s Narrative of the Mutiny on [the...] Bounty offered in Carlisle was a tightly bound copy of the 1790 first edition in a contemporary binding of quarter calf and marbled boards, and it sold at £3150.

UK: LOCAL bidders accounted for most of the Oriental and European ceramics and works of art offered at Edinburgh where 306 lots totalled £75,000 but the top seller went to an English bidder.

In these days of raging prices for anything remotely decorative in the world of antiques, it is not often that you find something early, unusual and pleasing to the eye for little more than £500.

UK: The unexpected crowd puller at Lyon & Turnbull’s 509-lot sale on October 8 was this Wanli period (1573-1619) Chinese blue and white ewer estimated at £400-500

While Thai and Chinese businessmen splashed out on bottles of Pomerol 61 and Romanee-Conti 85 in the years leading up to the crash of the Tiger economies in the late 1990s, Japanese captains of industry were impressing their corporate friends with equally expensive bottles of Scotch, which they would crack open after work and down in one sitting.

Included among a fine selection of Scottish silver and vertu at the sale conducted by Sotheby’s at the Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire, Scotland on August 29 was this remarkable royal presentation set of buttons painted with shooting, fishing and hunting scenes.

Country pursuits like shooting grouse and watching royals traditionally attract wealthy tourists to Scotland at the end of August, and auctioneers have long since taken advantage of this influx.

UK: Hawk-eyed Neil Froggatt spotted the true worth of an antique treasure during a routine household evaluation.

UK: THE designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh are normally associated with stellar prices in the salerooms, but this stained birch day bed struggled to get away at Lyon and Turnbull’s Glasgow sale of Decorative Arts on April 18 and indeed had experienced a fair degree of ignorance or neglect in the course of its history.

UK: A Shining Palace, a 2ft 1/4in by 20in (62 x 51cm) oil on canvas view of Venice, signed by William John Leech (1881-1968) had been consigned to a sale conducted by Mainstreet Auctions in the village of Saint Boswells on March 4, 2000 where it was spotted by a runner from the south east of England.

UK: LARGELY ignored by the English and Continental trade at Phillips' Edinburgh sale, this 17th century ivory figure of an unknown Dutchman was so desired by two competing Scottish dealers that it brought £11,500 against a £2000 top estimate.

UK: SEVEN telephone bidders swooped on this Victorian oak dining table, 6ft 6in by 3ft 7in (2.00 x 1.10m) offered with an estimate of £1800-2200 at Phillips Edinburgh on December 17.

UK: THE Scottish art market has been given a boost of confidence over the past few weeks by the strong performance of three sales in Edinburgh, that turned over £1.5m of antiques from Scottish sources.

UK: A RARE catch indeed, the most important painting of its period in a British private collection, Botticelli’s Virgin Adoring the Christ Child, c.1490-1500, pictured right, has been acquired by the National Gallery of Scotland from the 10th Earl of Wemyss and March, who was about to sell it to America.

UK: IT is about as accurate as a relief map moulded from pearlware could be, but why, assembled dealers and collectors at Sotheby’s Gleneagles were asking themselves, was the title of the country to the piece, left, inscibed upside down?

UK: THE rumour that the senior executives who have quit Phillips Edinburgh are to set up a rival auctioneers under the Lyon & Turnbull banner has been confirmed.

UK: Rival venture rumoured Five senior staff at Phillips Edinburgh, including the manager Nick Curnow, have resigned and left the company to pursue new interests.

UK: IT may have been a touch risky for Phillips (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) to illustrate a dodo on the front cover of a catalogue for the sale of 19th and 20th century design in Edinburgh on May 21, but thankfully for the auctioneers it proved to be anything but a dead duck when it came to the bidding.