Lure of the historical portrait
November 2 2011
Picture: Lyon & Turnbull
A portrait of John Brown and Queen Victoria fetched £120,000 (hammer) at the Forbes collection sale in Edinburgh yesterday. The picture was by Charles Burton Barber and based on a photograph, so looked rather wooden. But it nonetheless comfortably beat its estimate of £20-30,000. It had originally been a gift to Brown's family from Victoria.
To see my view of the nature of the relationship between Brown and Victoria (ie, did they get it on?), see here.
Elsewhere in the sale, some of the high profile 19th Century lots failed to set the pulses racing. In particular, J E Millais' For the Squire, the epitome of Victorian 'sentimentalia', sold for £450,000 hammer, against a £500-800,000 reserve. The price reflects the changing taste for some 19th Century art - 15 years ago, at the height of the pre-Raphaelite fever, it might have made double that...
