Unsigned, but breathing the name of one of the leaders of the Arts & Crafts movement in Scotland, this enamel panel and unmarked silver brooch sold for £5500 at Greenslade Taylor Hunt (19.5% buyer’s premium) in Taunton.
The image of angels attending a slumbering figure in a landscape is the mirror image of a signed 1909 enamel panel by Phoebe Anna Traquair (1852- 1936) entitled The Dream now in the V&A. The 2in (5cm) wide frame is also similar to a recorded signed and dated 1903 Traquair pendant, The Awakening.
The saleroom called on the expertise of Scottish curator and author Dr Elizabeth Cumming, whose special subject is Traquair, and could catalogue the brooch as attributed to the influential illustrator, painter and embroiderer who in 1920 became the first woman elected to the Royal Scottish Academy.