Raffle prize may be sold for £50,000

A PAINTING by one of Scotland's finest female artists, Anne Redpath, which was won in a raffle in the 1950s, is set to fetch up to £50,000 at auction next week.

The oil painting Plants in the Sun was completed in 1954, when Redpath was 59, and depicts two potted plants flowering on a tabletop.

It was shown at the Women's International Art Club annual exhibition in 1955, at the New Burlington Galleries in London. The entrance tickets were numbered and entered into a raffle, with the winner able to choose a picture in the exhibition.

Now, 56 years on, the painting is set to feature in Bonhams Scottish Pictures sale in Edinburgh on 21 April when it is expected it will fetch between 30,000 and 50,000.

Chris Brickley, Bonhams' head of pictures in Scotland, said: "Plants in the Sun is a fine example of Redpath's increasingly popular flower paintings.

"As in so many of her works, Redpath plays with perspective to suit the design of the painting rather than follow conventional rules.

"In this, the surface of the table top on which the plant pots sit tilts towards the viewer emphasising the play of the light and the depth of the shadows."

Redpath, who died aged 70 in 1965, became famous for her vivid domestic still-life paintings.