Scottish Colourist painting sells for more than £381,000 at auction

A “masterful” painting by Scottish Colourist Samuel John Peploe which once hung in his patron’s drawing room has sold for more than £381,000 at auction.

Roses In A Green Jug went under the hammer in the Scottish art sale at Bonhams in Edinburgh on Wednesday.

It sold for £381,400 including buyer’s premium, above the estimate of £250,000-£350,000.

Paintings by fellow Scottish Colourist Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell and by the late Jack Vettriano also featured in the sale.

Pendine Beach (Study) by Jack Vettriano sold for £44,800. PA Media

Peploe once characterised his career as a search for the perfect still life, and was influenced by his time in Paris from 1910-12 where he studied the work of Post-Impressionist masters.

Major Ion R Harrison, a Scottish shipping magnate, first encountered Peploe’s work at an exhibition in Glasgow in the 1920s and soon became a close friend and patron of the painter and the Scottish Colourists.

May Matthews, managing director of Bonhams Scotland, said: “Peploe’s Roses In A Green Jug is a masterful execution of composition and colour, taking inspiration from Paul Cezanne and French Post-Impressionism, while maintaining the artist’s distinctive individual style.

“Peploe’s still lifes were meticulously planned and executed, creating the dialogue between object and space for which he and his fellow Colourists were renowned.

The White Strand by Scottish Colourist Samuel John Peploe fetched £74,060. PA Media

“The work has a remarkable provenance, having once hung in the drawing room of Croft House owned by Ion R Harrison, a notable patron of the Scottish Colourists.”

Roses In A Green Jug can be seen hanging in the background of Cadell’s Portrait Of Mrs Ion R Harrison of 1932.

Six works by Vettriano, who died earlier this year, also went under the hammer.

Pendine Beach (Study), which was painted in 1996, sold for £44,800, including buyer’s premium, above the estimate of £20,000-£30,000.

The painting once hung in the late Sir Terence Conran’s Bluebird restaurant in London, after he bought the picture in 1996, Bonhams said.

A selection of landscapes of the island of Iona were also sold.

They included Peploe’s paintings of The White Strand, Iona, which went for £74,060.

All prices included buyer’s premium.