Sky's the limit for paintings by greatest-ever bird artist

The seven classic works by Archibald Thorburn were completed during his artistic prime in the 1920s, when he was in his sixties.

One scene, Ptarmigan Calling in the Snow, featuring a group of the gamebirds in a Scots landscape, achieved the highest price ever recorded for a Thorburn painting on the subject, fetching 72,000 – and smashing its pre-sale estimate of 15,000-20,000.

Another, Ptarmigan Seeking Shelter, depicting ruffled birds hiding from the snowy Scottish elements by a rock, sold for 62,400 after a similar pre-sale estimate.

The paintings, which were owned by an estate in the north of England, went under the hammer at Bonhams' sale of 19th-century paintings in Bond Street, London.

Thorburn, an Edinburgh-born artist renowned for his beautiful images of birds and wildlife with attractive countryside backgrounds, is traditionally popular with sportsmen, countrymen and bird lovers.

The paintings generated massive competition as they had never before come to market.

Charles O'Brien, Bonhams' head of 19th-century painting, said: "Thorburn is highly collectable and we were fortunate enough to land a collection like that which, although not numerically very large, was – in terms of quality, colour and composition – as good as you will find. Thorburn loved to work outside and these, watercolours on paper, date from the mid-1920s when he was producing his very best work.

"The paintings were incredibly naturalistic – not only of exceptional quality, but the feeling of movement of the birds within the landscape is very strong.

"One of the staggering things was that these pictures had never been on the market before. They came from an estate where they had not been hung for many years, and their colours are so strong."

Mr O'Brien added: "These (sale] results were exceptional and prove that the market is still extremely buoyant for good, traditional works."

The other five paintings sold were Cock and Hen Pheasant in Winter (38,400); Red Grouse Packing (44,400), Autumn Covert (42,000); Cock and Hen Pheasant at the Edge of a Wood (34,800); and A Woodcock (45,600).

Thorburn, who died aged 75 in 1935, was a traditionalist painter and one of Britain's most accomplished watercolour artists.

In 1880, at the age of 20, his work was accepted for the Royal Academy Exhibition in London, and in 1887 his reputation was secured by a commission to illustrate Lord Lilford's Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Isles, for which he painted 268 watercolours.

His style of painting represented a change in wildlife art around the turn of the century.

Besides producing a prolific number of watercolours, he also contributed to scores of natural history books for authors, ornithologists and explorers of the day, and found time to write and illustrate six of his own.

HOW IT'S SPLIT

Total allocation ()

Clackmannanshire 251,687

Dundee City 644,740

East Ayrshire 620,706

Edinburgh, City of 2,037,313

Falkirk 379,169

Fife 1,335,137

Glasgow City 3,879,336

Highland 294,171

Inverclyde 141,745

Midlothian 213,391

North Ayrshire 690,506

North Lanarkshire 1,732,352

Renfrewshire 848,126

South Ayrshire 258,509

South Lanarkshire 1,528,349

West Dunbartonshire 514,430

West Lothian 859,372

Total 16,229,041