Scottish panto artworks fetch £1,850 at auction

ORIGINAL artworks for early Scottish pantomimes, which were saved from the scrap heap, have fetched almost £2,000 at auction.

The rare surviving watercolours were designed for John Howard and Frederick Wyndham’s Scottish theatres, and included images from productions dating from the late 1920s to the early 1940s.

One of four pictures sold illustrated an episode from the rarely staged Queen of Hearts believed to date from the 1929-30 panto season at the Kings Theatre in Edinburgh.

They were rescued by a costume worker before they could be discarded, and went under the hammer at Shapes auction in Edinburgh on Saturday when they were snapped up by collectors for £1,850.