Sale of £5.9m Landseer sets record as romantic Highland vision holds

Landseer's Scene in Braemar reached a sale price of £5.9m at Sotheby's . PIC: Sotheby's | Sotheby's

A painting by Sir Edwin Landseer has set an auction record for the artist whose work did much to create the romantic vision of Scotland during the Victorian period.

Scene in Braemar depicts a 12-point stag with does on a Highland peak and commanded £5.94m at Sotheby’s during a bidding war between three parties, with the successful buyer’s identity so far unknown.

The painting is considered a sister work of Landseer’s 1851 Monarch of the Glen, perhaps one of Scotland’s most popular and recognisable paintings, which was bought by National Galleries of Scotland in 2017 for a cut-price of £4m.

Julian Gascoigne, Senior Director and Senior Specialist, British Paintings at Sotheby’s, said: “It was thrilling to see Scene in Braemar chased by three determined bidders - a testament to the enduring power of Landseer, the most important animal painter of the 19th century, to captivate collectors.

“This is by far the most monumental painting he ever produced, and the culmination of his decade-long fascination with the heroic stag. If The Monarch of the Glen was the first high point of that obsession and remains an icon of British art the world over, Scene in Braemar is its apogee - a sister painting in spirit, and arguably the one of the crowning achievements of his career."

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Scene in Braemar was originally commissioned by English railway magnate Edward Betts amid the new fashion for the Highlands which was spurred by Queen Victoria’s fondness for the place and purchase of Balmoral. The painting passed through various private collections, including that of the Dublin-based Guinness family. It was later shown on long-term loan at the National Gallery of Ireland.

The painting's last appearance at auction was in 1994 when it sold for £793,500.

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Elisabeth Lobkowicz, head of department of old masters paintings, Europe, at Sotheby’s said the sale of the “magnificent” painting represented the “resounding endorsement of the power of Old Masters to captivate collectors across generations, tastes and geographies”.

She added: “What was particularly striking was the breadth of participation throughout the sale, with spirited competition across categories, periods and price points, culminating in an extraordinary number of auction records.

“These results speak not only to the strength of the market, but to a deeply felt desire among collectors to engage with objects that connect us to centuries of artistic achievement and human creativity. It is immensely gratifying to have witnessed such enthusiasm in London, reaffirming its role as one of the world's great centres for art and collecting.”

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Landseer spent much time at Glen Feshie in the Cairngorms with his lover the Duchess of Bedford at an encampment built by the aristocrat to allow the couple to escape the glare and gossip of polite society.

The duchess, wife of John Russell, sixth Duke of Bedford, ordered the construction of number of huts in Glen Feshie in the early 1830s.

The duchess and the artist first met when her husband commissioned the artist to paint a portrait of his wife.

Landseer, widely thought to have fathered the Duchess’s tenth child, went on to become synonymous with the 19th Century Romantic depictions of Highland life so adored by the English upper classes and has been frequently described as Queen Victoria’s favourite artist.