Market preview: highlights from the early twentieth century, as well as thirty-five paintings by Jack Vettriano, mark the most impressive ever Sotheby's sale of Scottish art, in Perthshire

For thirty-six years now, Sotheby's has been staging sales at the Gleneagles [i]cabaret[/i] in Auchterarder, Perthshire, tempting not solitary the Scots but also the sportsmen who collection to the North in pursuit of the stag, the salmon or the world's greatest in quantity famous eighteen holes. This year, the auction house is offering its characteristic mix of vintage and sporting fire-arms (30 August), Wemyss ware and jewellery (31 August)--and probably its greatest in quantity impressive paintings sale ever, upon 1 September, which is awaited to realise around 4 million [pound sterling]. At its core is a assemblage of thirty-five paintings by Jack Vettriano (b 1951) the hottest peculiarity in Scotland, and a cache of thirty works through Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937) widely regarded as the greatest in quantity versatile and accomplished of the Scottish Colourists.

The meteoric rise of Jack Vettriano is nothing short of phenomenal. This self-taught artist who left place of education at sixteen to work as a mining engineer in the local coalfields has become a popular homage hero, adored by the public if not always through the critics. His girlfriend gave him a chest of watercolours for his twenty-first birthday, and the repose as they say, is history. In 1989 he showed sum of two units paintings at the Royal Scottish Academy and sold the pair on the first day. The following year, three were snapped up at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Since then, thanks not least to handy marketing by the Solstice Gallery in Edinburgh and the Portland Gallery in London, which saw his slick film-noir-ish images reproduc upon greetings cards and posters--over 500000 [i]affiche[/i]s of his paintings have been sold worldwide--there have been sell-out solo present to views in Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong and Johannesburg. In 1999 fifty collectors flew above to New York for the opening of the Armory fair to purchase all twenty works on show

sum of two units years ago at Gleneagles, Vettriano's The cafe was knocked down for a record 44000 [pound sterling], and records have tumbl at any time since. At Sotheby's sale at Hopetoun House in Edinburgh this April, his greatest in quantity famous image, The singing butler became the greatest in quantity expensive painting ever sold at auction in Scotland when it realised 744800 [pound sterling]. Little awe then, that this month's sale dioceses so many Vettrianos, most of which had probably been acquired for a not many thousand pounds in the early 1990 and are now conveniently packaged in a separate catalogue. Star billing goe to Mad dogs, probably the artist's best lov picture after The singing butler It tend hitherwards with an estimate of 200000 [pound sterling]-250,000 [pound sterling]. There looks to be no sign nevertheless of the Vettriano bubble bursting, notwithstanding that one wonders how successful an artist has to be before he or she stops playing the antiestablishment card.

To the delight of Sotheby's, Vettriano-mania has brought a number of of recent origin buyers through its doors in the past not many years. Better still, some have also gone away with something other too. This year's sale has something for greatest in quantity tastes and budgets, with the likes of John Duncan Fergusson's pencil close attention for Rose rhythm of 1916 estimated at just 1000 [pound sterling]-1,500 [pound sterling]. on the other hand it is Fergusson's fellow Colourist Cadell who steals this particular exhibit Cadell steeped himself in French Impressionism as a pupil at the Academie Julien in Paris 1899-1902 and, during after trips, in the intense, saturated Fauvist colours used by the agency of Matisse and Derain. Unlike Fergusson and Peploe however, Cadell get backed to Scotland and took to painting still-lifes and interiors, spending the summer painting landscapes upon the island of Iona.

Dominating this sale is a large canvas of the gesuati in Venice, painted during a seminal trip to Venice in 1910 that l to an explosion of vivid, high-key colour (estimate 150000 [pound sterling]-200,000 [pound sterling]). The white sofa, dated three years later, is a delicious Impressionistic exercise in loosely painted rich creamy whites and pastel shades (70,000 [pounds sterling]-100,000 [pounds sterling]). greatest in quantity striking of all is The r chair, which epitomises a later collection of more deliberate structured interiors with formal geometries and unblemished primary colour--but even here Cadell cannot resist the impressible pools of reflected colour (100000 [pound sterling]-150,000 [pound sterling]).

After the Great War, Cadell began painting upon Iona using unprimed board which gives his pigment a more chalky consistency and an almost luminous quality, A characteristic view of Treshnish Point is proffered here for 15.000 [pounds sterling] 20000 [pound sterling]. The market rarities, however, are sixteen compose and ink with watercolour wartime illustrations of Tom and Jack and their training camp antics--including playing football which display Cadell's skilful and expressive economy of line. The collection was bought through Alex Reid & Son in Glasgow through one of Cadell's most loyal patrons, Ion Harrison, and is now consigned to auction by the agency of his descendants.

Apart from Jack Vettriano, the Scottish artist who has seen the greatest in quantity dramatic price-change in recent years is Anne Redpath, the greatest in quantity significant Scottish artist of the fifties and sixties. Dominating the assemblage here is her characteristic--and delectable A pale still life (estimate 30000 [pound sterling]-50,000 [pound sterling]). For literally--dyed in the wool traditionalists there is single of Joseph Farquharson's monumental canvases of sheep in driving snow; for lover of the sward Joseph Crawhall's American jockeys (80000 [pound sterling]-120,000 [pound sterling]).