Edinburgh

Scotland’s key role in the 18th and 19th century China trade has a legacy. Some of the nation’s country houses remain the repository of important Far Eastern works of art.

Among the top-estimated lots at the Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) sale of African & Oceanic Art, Antiquities and Natural History in Edinburgh on May 5 was a hammered bronze Apulo-Corinthian helmet from southern Italy, c.350-500BC.

A Beijing enamel vase from a Scottish country house topped the Asian art sale held ‘behind closed doors’ by Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium).

One of the side-effects for the art market of being in a lockdown is that people have more time to discover works that they might have otherwise missed or overlooked.

Works by the prolific John Bellany (1942-2013) appear regularly at auction, with small drawings often available for hundreds of pounds, but the larger and vigorously coloured figurative oils generally make many thousands.

Although premises are closed, online selling can help to create a sale day sense of excitement

Although often overshadowed by her famous father William, May Morris (1862-1938) was herself an important figure in the British Arts & Crafts movement.

Containing some 600 hand-coloured engraved plates, a set of Sowerby and De Carle’s 'The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain…' of 1812-29 was just another of the many attraction in a sale last month held by Lyon & Turnbull.

Two alluring early-20th century British school portraits of attractive young women caught the eye in recent regional sales. Both modestly estimated, they brought similar four-figure sums.

A pair of Chinese carved officials’ chairs offered at Ramsay Cornish (20% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh were typical of the furniture made at the end of the Qing period, some of it for local use, much of it for export.

Shown below is a plate from A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most Notorious Pyrates… sold at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) on February 19

This 14in (25cm) diameter bronze bell shown here bears the insignia of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (the Dutch East India Company or VOC), the date 1747 and the name Jaffanapatnam. It is suspended in a wrought iron frame and mounted to a large stone mill wheel.

'La Navigation du Roy d’Ecosse' by the French cartographer Nicolas de Nicolay (1517-83) is said to be the oldest accurate map of coastal Scotland.

The 19th century Dutch painter Jozef Israëls (1824-1911), a leading member of the Hague School group of landscape painters, was best known for his realistic and sympathetic portrayals of the Dutch peasantry and fisherfolk.

The arts of the Ottoman court are performing strongly in the marketplace. The unexpected highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s Five Centuries auction in Edinburgh on February 5 was an Ottoman saddle.

Private domestic demand rather than trade drives bidding at Scottish and Irish art auctions.