Lyon & Turnbull

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.

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.

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.

A country house library in south-west Scotland was the source of an album of 19th century photographs of India that provided a Valentine’s Day surprise at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh.

It was around this time of year when wealthy skiers with chalets to decorate would dial in from the slopes of the world’s most prestigious resorts to take part in Christie’s South Kensington’s annual Ski Sale.

More than £730,000 worth of pictures changed hands at Edinburgh saleroom Lyon & Turnbull’s (25/20% buyer’s premium) recent sale of Scottish art.

The rising popularity of the tribal art collecting scene is tempting auction houses to take steps in that direction.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Former Christie’s vintage poster specialists Nicolette Tomkinson and Sophie Churcher have teamed up with Lyon & Turnbull to launch dedicated auctions this year.

Dated by the Edinburgh auctioneers to c.1815-17, a group of watercolours made on a voyage to the Middle and Far East was bid to a far higher than expected £13,000 in a 650-lot Lyon & Turnbull (25/20% buyer’s premium) sale of October 11.

With sales of post-1860 design a seasonal fixture round the country, an argument could be made for Scottish auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) having a geographical edge.

Figuring why a specific lot did unexpectedly well is part and parcel of reviewing auctions but this oil on board lunette of a pastoral idyll below is more of a challenge than most.

Sales held on consecutive days in Edinburgh and London produced two lots that ended up selling for far, far higher than expected sums.

So much more successful than their 18th century forebears, today’s Jacobites go from strength to strength.

A raft of contemporary and post-war art featured in the busy August schedule in Scotland. Such art remains a picky and tempestuous market north of the border. The latest results were scattered with a mix of bullish and more subdued results.