Lyon & Turnbull

UK dealers buying foreign silver, overseas bidders taking British work and generally solid interest for traditional pieces of mid-ranking silver brightened up the normally quieter late summer sales across the country.

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

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.

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.

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

The coming weeks will offer some special, if sometimes very costly, opportunities for bird lovers.

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.

Several decades ago, when China was shut to the Western world, encounters with foreigners were understandably rare.

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.

MADAM – Defra’s findings outlined in the post-consultation document include an extraordinarily impractical provision for the ‘de minimis’ exemption – requiring registration (with an as yet unspecified fee) of all objects with an ivory content below 10% created before 1947.

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.

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.

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.

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.