Antique ice bowl making tracks back to home country

A NINETEENTH-century silver ice bowl given by grateful railway workers to their managing director after he saved their company from disaster in Canada is to be returned to the country after being spotted by sharp-eye antiques experts in Edinburgh.

The Tiffany bowl rests on three exquisitely crafted polar bears standing on a jagged ice formation.

It was originally made as a gift from the employees of the Great Western Railroad of Canada as a token of respect for their boss, Charles Brydges, a Londoner who became managing director of the company in 1852.

Last year the bowl, valued at up to 20,000, turned up at the valuation desk at Bonhams Edinburgh where, the auctioneers said "its value and appeal were instantly recognised".

A spokesman said: "Its history is fascinating, but now the bowl is heading home." It will be auctioned in Toronto in November.

Clare Blatherwick, Bonhams' silver expert in Scotland, said: "This bowl is wonderful. It is a perfect museum-quality piece of Tiffany in its own right, but its intriguing history lifts it to another plane and it really deserves a setting where the public can appreciate it."