Secretary in the frame for £100k from gifts

Forty years ago a wealthy Scottish businessman left two rare paintings to his long-serving secretary in thanks for decades of work when she never took a day off or came “a minute late”.

Now his generosity is expected to earn the unnamed woman, in her 90s, up to £100,000 when she sells the paintings through a Glasgow auctioneer later this month.

In 1971, when whisky company founder and arts patron Charles Hepburn died, he left paintings by the 20th-century English artist Sir Alfred Munnings and the leading 18th-century Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay to his loyal employee.

The gift, he wrote, was in “heartfelt appreciation of her lifetime of loving care and attention and of the most efficient and meritorious manner with which she discharged her duties throughout the best years of her life, never having been a day off her work or a minute late since she entered my services in 1936”.

Zennor Hill, a painting of a hunting scene by Munnings, is valued at between £80-120,000. The portrait is the only known painting by Ramsay of his daughter Amelia.