Drawing interest from the US was a portrait of a fierce-looking Scottish laird by John Pettie (1839-93), pictured far right.
The 11½ x 9in (29 x 23cm) oil on canvas was knocked down to an American buyer for £1900, over six times the top estimate at John Nicholson’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Haslemere, Surrey, on January 30. Pettie specialised in romanticised Scottish historical paintings that verged on the melodramatic. In 2003 Christie’s took £199,150 (with premium) for his famous work The Chieftain’s Candlesticks, an oil of torch-wielding Highlanders from the Forbes Collection.