Latest news with #LyonTurnbull


BBC News
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Roald Dahl's sketches for memoir sell at auction for £24,000
Original sketches done by children's author Roald Dahl for his memoir have sold for nearly £24, who was born in Llandaff, Cardiff, produced the sketches in black ballpoint pen for the book Boy, which was published in his almost five-decade long career, these are the only book sketches he ever sold in Edinburgh for £23,940 as part of Lyon & Turnbull's books and manuscripts sale on Wednesday. In the book, Dahl - who moved to Buckinghamshire and died in 1990 at the age of 74 - wrote about his childhood exploits, including playing a prank with his friends on the local sweetshop owner, Mrs Pratchett, by putting a dead mouse in a gobstopper jar. To accompany this tale, Dahl drew a mouse lying on top of the sweets with its legs in the drawings were found in an envelope which belonged to the late Ian Craig, from Ipswich, who was art director at the author's publishing firm, Jonathan Cape, in sketches were sold as part of the production archive from Mr Craig's estate and included Mr Craig's own designs, as well as the publisher's original page layouts and Somerville-Brown, Lyon & Turnbull's rare books and manuscripts specialist said: "This archive is unique in the Roald Dahl canon – it's very rare to find material by his own hand."This is reflected in the price achieved which also demonstrates the enduring popularity of his children's stories 35 years after his death."


The Independent
03-06-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Scottish Colourist paintings reunited after more than 70 years ahead of auction
Paintings by two Scottish Colourists are to go under the hammer in a 'friends reunited' moment this week after more than 70 years apart. Samuel John Peploe's Firs At The Massif des Calanques, Cassis was displayed alongside Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell's Interior – Santa Maria della Salute, Venice at an exhibition in Edinburgh in 1949. They will feature in Lyon & Turnbull's Scottish paintings and sculpture auction on Thursday, with each estimated to fetch between £80,000 and £120,000. Firs At The Massif des Calanques, Cassis was painted in 1928 during the third of four trips Peploe made to the French port during a period of more than 25 years. Cadell painted the interior of Santa Maria della Salute, a church which stands at the entrance to the Grand Canal, following a visit he made to Venice in 1910. Both paintings featured in the Scottish Colourists exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy's Festival Exhibition in 1949, where work by their friend Leslie Hunter was also on show. Alice Strang, senior specialist with Lyon & Turnbull and an expert in the work of the Scottish Colourists, said: 'This is a 'friends reunited' moment. 'It is thrilling to think that the last time these two beautiful paintings, by artists who were such good friends, were in the same room was in 1949, when they were exhibited together in the Royal Scottish Academy, down the road from our saleroom. 'The Peploe transports us to the heat of Cassis, whilst the Cadell takes us to the beauty of Venice. 'Their remarkable reunion will last until the sale day this Thursday.'


The Independent
30-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Joan Eardley Sketches of Glasgow street children to be sold at auction
Sketches depicting Glasgow street children by artist Joan Eardley will go on sale at auction next week. The 11 small pastel and charcoal drawings were selected from one of Eardley's sketchbooks which was given to a doctor after her death by her close friend Angus Neil, who died in 1992. Eardley is considered one of the great British artists of the 20th century and the collection is to be sold live online and in Edinburgh by auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull on June 5. The works depict studies of street children in Townhead for which she is best known, alongside sketches of Catterline on the north-east coast of Scotland where she lived with Mr Neil. The friends met at Scottish art school Hospitalfield House in Arbroath, Angus, in 1947 and Mr Neil would often stay in her Townhead studio for long periods of time. When Eardley moved to Catterline, he helped renovate her cottage and became a fixture around the small fishing village. After the war, Mr Neil struggled with his mental health and Eardley became a pivotal figure in his life, looking out for him and helping him financially. When Eardley died of cancer in 1963 aged 42, a distraught Mr Neil was admitted to the psychiatric hospital Sunnyside Royal near Montrose. The sketchbook was given by Mr Neil to a GP in Glasgow in the 1960s, who had provided him with room and board during a breakdown, and has been treasured by the family ever since. The auction also includes four large works by Eardley, including Fishing Nets, Catterline, which is valued at £30,000-£50,000. It featured in a major exhibition of Eardley's work in the National Galleries of Scotland in 2016-17. Jeannie, valued at £40,000-£60,000, depicts an elderly lady, Jeannie Kelso, who was befriended by Eardley during holidays to the Isle of Arran in the early 1940s. Blue Jersey, which depicts a child holding her baby brother, is estimated to fetch between £20,000 and £30,000. A rare example of an early Eardley painting, Street Scene, from the 1940s, has a valuation of £7,000-£10,000. Charlotte Riordan, senior specialist at Lyon & Turnbull, said: 'These sketches epitomise the intuitive mark-making and consummate skill of Joan Eardley. To me, they also speak volumes about the woman herself; they're direct – blunt even – but clever and charismatic. A total original.'