Scottish Colourists collection to be auctioned

PAINTINGS from a private collection of works by the Scottish Colourists are expected to sell for more than £1 million when they go under the hammer in Edinburgh next week.

The works include a still life by Samuel Peploe, painted in the 1920s, titled Still Life, Roses and Chinese Blue, which is expected to sell for between £250,000 and £350,000.

A spokesman at auctioneers Bonhams, which will conduct the sale in Edinburgh next Wednesday, said: “This archetypal still life, painted circa 1924, features the motifs for which Peploe became most celebrated: roses – often pink – in a Chinese vase, fruit, crockery and drapery.

“These objects, occasionally augmented by a fan or mirror, were explored in seemingly endless permutations as the artist famously sought to paint ‘the perfect still life’.”

The second Peploe oil in the sale, Blue & White Vase, Roses, Melon and Orange, estimated to fetch between £150,000 and £250,000, is described as “a wilfully two-dimensional design”, double-sided with “study for houses and landscape”.