Collectors of Scotland-related items will relish an auction at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire next month.
Sotheby's Scottish sale from September 3rd to 5th features Wemyss Ware, jewels, silver, modern and vintage sporting guns and rifles, and Scottish and sporting paintings, drawings and watercolours.
A rare three-handled "tyg" or vessel of Wemyss Ware, a Scottish utility pottery, made by Robert Heron & Son of Kircaldy, Fife, circa 1900, was inspired by 17th century three-handled vessels. The large circular pot is decorated with a band of water and nine carp swimming in reeds. Estimated at £8,000 sterling (€12,930) to £12,000, it is believed to be the only large tyg decorated with the rare carp pattern.
At last year's Gleneagles auction, a rare Wemyss sleeping piglet sold for a record £9,600. That record seems to have woken up a lot of collectors because this year there are many more sleeping pigs. For instance, an early 20th century sleeping piglet with a green thistle design is estimated at £3,000 to £4,000, while a large circa 1900 Wemyss pig with pink and black markings carries the same estimate.
Silver that once belonged to Mr Niam Atallah, publisher of Auberon Waugh of the Literary Review, highlights the silver section of the auction, with estimates ranging from £400 to £5,000. A pair of Victorian silver entreΘ dishes and covers on Sheffield plate heater bases, the covers stamped with the trademark Roskell Late Storr & Mortimer, are estimated at £4,000 to £6,000.
A Scottish silver teapot initialled CF below a viscount's coronet is believed to refer to Caroline, Viscountess Fortrose (1747-1767). Made by James L Tait of Edinburgh, the teapot dates from circa 1730 and is estimated at £1,500 to £2,000.
A Victorian silver-mounted bone fisherman's priest, a club used for killing fish, bears the initial H above a coronet, believed to have belonged to the Duke of Hamilton (1845-1895) is estimated at £1,500 to £2,000.
One of the perennial collectors' dreams came to pass when a brooch purchased in a car boot sale for only £2.50 turned out to be valued by experts at £4,000 to £6,000.
The woman who discovered it said: "I love jewellery and often go hunting among car boot sales. I saw the brooch at a sale I visit quite regularly. It was in a box with miscellaneous pieces of jewellery and I thought it was lovely but that the diamonds were too large to be real." Sotheby's experts told her it dated from 1925 and was of diamond and rock crystal.
Scottish pebble jewellery remains highly sought after. First made popular by Queen Victoria on her acquisition of Balmoral in the 1840s, designs are based on traditional Scottish folk jewels and commissioned for personal taste. Jewels were set with Scottish hardstones such as bloodstone, granite, jasper, moss agate, cornelian, pale pink Corennie and grey Aberdeen granites. A citrine necklace with graduating sizes of citrine is estimated at £1,500 to £1,800, while an amethyst and citrine ring is estimated at £200 to £400.
Timed to coincide with the Scottish shooting season, the rifle section includes a .450 Nitro Express sidelock ejector rifle by John Rigby & Co, built in 1925. Estimated at £20,000 to £30,000, the locks are engraved with a tiger and rhino. A Holland and Holland .303 "Royal Model" double-barrelled sidelock ejector, circa 1900, is estimated at £18,000 to £24,000.
Artists featured include Sir William Allan (1782-1850), with a painting estimated at £50,000 to £80,000, and William McTaggart (1835-1910), with a painting estimated at £80,000 to £120,000.
jmarms@irish-times.ie
