Edinburgh

A medal, silver cigar box and ‘oil lamp’ lighter sold at Ramsay Cornish's latest sale in Edinburgh had come by descent from Major Jonathan Leslie Dean (1859-1926). He was a key participant in the defence of O’okiep (1902), the small town in the Northern Cape that was besieged by Boer Commandos from April 4-May 4, 1902, towards the end of the Second Boer War.

Beneath the famous anchor and dolphin device that denotes a product of the Aldine presses in Venice, the final leaf of a 1516 edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses below bears an inscription that reveals the reason this little work in its later vellum binding sold at £6000.

The annual Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe which run this year from August 2-26 attract audiences of 400,000-plus visitors to the city.

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.

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.

Some buyers regard sales of dealers’ stock as a minus on the grounds that the lots have been ‘seen’. Others view them as a plus, reckoning the material has already been the choice of an expert.

Lyon & Turnbull is holding an auction of Modern & Contemporary art, sculpture and design at The Mall Galleries in London on March 27 under the title Modern Made.

A small group of lots in a recent Edinburgh sale were once part of the library of the late 5th Earl of Lovelace at Torridon House.

Among the most eagerly-contested lots in the Paul Reeves: An Eye For Design sale at Lyon & Turnbull was this set of Royal Worcester porcelain wall brackets, c.1865, allegorical of the four seasons.

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