Lyon & Turnbull

Publicity worked well in the Lyon & Turnbull sale for Golf in the Year 2000, or What are We Coming To..., a work of 1892 by J.A.C.K.

THE Andrew McIntosh Patrick Collection of metalwork by Christopher Dresser – to be sold by Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull in April – is on view at The Fleming Collection, 13 Berkeley Street, London W1 on Thursday, March 10 (not March 7 as previously advertised).

Though blessed with means of communication beyond the comprehension of anyone of Nelson’s navy – superior by far to signal beacons, semaphore and speeding sloops and cutters – an unfortunate breakdown in these modern methods meant that the two Nelson items featured in last week’s reports were not joined by what proved to be the star turn in a Lyon & Turnbull sale of February 1.

ANDREW McIntosh Patrick, director of The Fine Art Society, is to sell his celebrated collection of metalwork by the Victorian industrial designer Christopher Dresser. Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull will conduct the projected £400,000 sale on April 19.

JUST shy of their bicentenary, Whytock and Reid, the Edinburgh furniture makers, were forced into liquidation earlier this year. Foreign competition put paid to a company established in 1807 by Richard Whytock and John Reid that, in its 19th and early 20th century glory days, furnished the great houses and castles of Scotland, often working in partnership with the architect Robert Lorimer.

PART of a 12-vol. Winchester edition (1911-12) of the works of Jane Austen, bound in half red calf gilt by Sotherans, that made £3400 as part of the July 21 Lyon & Turnbull sale at Jordanstone.

Right: sold for £4200 in the July 21 sale held by Lyon & Turnbull at Jordanstone, an Ayrshire country house, was Rowlandson’s The Comforts of Bath, a set of a dozen prints issued by Fores in 1798, and here loosely inserted in an album of full red crushed morocco.

RIGHT: this suite of Victorian silver gentleman’s dressing table bottles is among 200 lots donated from Dorset homes that will be sold for charity at auction on September 18.

EXCEPTIONAL golfing collectables can still command exceptional prices.

OFFERED as part of a large sports sale held by Lyon & Turnbull of Edinburgh on July 12 was the angling and sporting library of Major Barton William-Powlett (1871-1953) of Cadhay in Devon.

PAINTINGS offered at Lyon & Turnbull’s (17.5% buyer's premium) July 21 Jordantone dispersal were mostly comfortable furnishing pictures of some quality including this uncharacteristic Joseph Farquharson oil, right, entitled Fisherwoman on a Deserted Sandy Beach. Very different from the artist’s trademark mix of sheep, heather and swirling snow, the 22in x 3ft (55x 91cm) image of a solitary figure walking barefoot on the shimmering sand went to a private buyer at £17,000.

TWO very strong prices, one in Edinburgh and one in London have underlined the status of the Zeigler as the most fashionable of late 19th century carpets. And the £110,000 and £130,000 bid for Zeigler & Co. carpets at Lyon & Turnbull on March 31 (Antiques Trade Gazette 1636, April 24) and Sotheby’s on April 28 (Antiques Trade Gazette 1641, May 29) had one thing in common – both were made with cream grounds.

GLASGOW in the 18th century was a shadow of the powerhouse it was to become during the Industrial Revolution. In the mid-18th century, when the primary source of wealth on the Clyde was trade in tobacco, rum and sugar from the New World, the population stood at a modest 17,500, enough to support only a handful of goldsmiths and silversmiths.

ONE might not have thought that a Glaswegian enamelled devotional triptych was the easiest of items to estimate, but Lyon & Turnbull (17.5/10% buyer's premium) specialist John Mackie had a number of reference points when cataloguing the piece shown right for the decorative arts sale in Edinburgh on April 21.

Right: this Morris & Co. tapestry titled Greenery sold for £180,000 (plus 17.5/10 per cent buyer’s premium) at Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull on April 21. The outstanding lot of the firm’s Decorative Arts sale was sold to a buyer from the London area, who said: “I fell in love with it the moment I saw it and just had to have it, it is a beautiful thing and worth every penny.”

Lyon & Turnbull’s 110-lot private collection did not just comprise Scottish silver, but also silver of Scottish interest. Among the more idiosyncratic elements in the catalogue was this allegorical Jacobite snuffbox, right.

The highlight of a 110-lot private collection of Scottish and Scottish-interest silver sold by Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull on February 19 was this tiny dram cup made by Hugh Ross c.1720.

One of the unforeseen consequences of the arrival of Enlightenment philosophy in Puritan Scotland was the creation of clubs and societies that encouraged exuberant and outrageous behaviour in their members. The best known is the Beggar’s Benison.

Despite a year that saw substantial declines in brown furniture prices and a tailing off in the demand for general silver, most of the UK’s top provincial auctioneers held steady in a difficult market.

Edinburgh-based auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull are set to expand out of Scotland, having made appointments in London, Devon and Newcastle. The bold move – claimed as a first for a Scottish auction house – comes close to the fifth birthday of an ambitious vision that has grown into a £5m business.