Born in Dundee, the son of painter James McIntosh Patrick (1907-1998) who exhibited through The Fine Art Society from the 1930s, Andrew McIntosh Patrick joined the New Bond Street dealers at the age of 20 on November 1, 1954.
Now in semi-retirement, he recently completed half a century at the company where - alongside Peyton Skipwith (who joined in 1962) and Simon Edsor (1967) - he remains both a director and deputy chairman.
During his 50-year tenure the dealership held ground-breaking exhibitions in a number of key areas of Victorian decorative arts, and it was in 1972 - during the cataloguing of the collection of Charles Hanley-Read and the seminal The Aesthetic Movement and the Cult of Japan exhibition - that he acquired his first pieces by Dr Dresser.
All were ceramic objects and a subsequent breakage led him to declare that in future he would acquire only 'unbreakable' objects from Dresser's oeuvre.
Three decades later the collection that Lyon & Turnbull will sell includes 52 pieces, many of them key works.
These include two of the celebrated series of small electroplated teapots designed by Dresser for James Dixon & Son - a hemispheric teapot (shape 2277) that is one of only half a dozen known and the rhomboid or lozenge teapot (shape 2274) that is the only one of its type so far recorded. Another apparently unique survival is a Hukin & Heath Japoniste silver teapot of 1878 set with a shibayama panel to the cover and turquoise enamel cabochons to the rim.
These were among the pieces loaned by Mr McIntosh Patrick to last year's centenary exhibition Christopher Dresser, A Design Revolution at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York that later moved to the Victoria and Albert Museum where it was seen by more than 35,000 visitors.
Mr McIntosh Patrick told ATG that he had opted to sell for both financial and practical reasons - costs of insurance, reduced circumstances that have curtailed the collecting instinct and the limited spaces in his London flat that have been steadily filled while his Dresser has been on tour.
His decision to choose Lyon & Turnbull over a major London auctioneer is driven by a number of factors. That both Lyon & Turnbull and The Fine Art Society share the same chairman in Sir Angus Grossart is an obvious connection but equally important was the contact with L&T specialist John Mackie and the level of personal service he expects to receive from a 'big small' firm. "I think this way it is going to be more fun," he said.
Lyon & Turnbull are planning to miss few marketing opportunities when promoting the sale. Using their connection with Philadelphia auctioneers Freeman's, they will exhibit choice items from the collection in the City of Brotherly Love in February and on March 3 plan to re-enact the address given by Dresser from the steps of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1876. The collection will also be shown at the Fleming Collection gallery (13 Berkeley Street, London W1) on March 7 before moving to Edinburgh for sale.
