THE largest single collection of furniture, drawings and paintings by Charles Rennie Mackintosh has sold at auction for £1.3 million.
More than 100 items from the New York home of the late Donald L Taffner, a television executive, and his wife Eleanor, went under the hammer at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh.
John Mackie, director at the auction house, said: "It was a fantastic atmosphere in a packed sale room with many of the bidders flying in from the United States and Europe, some leaving their private jets at Edinburgh Airport."
A number of lots were sold to overseas clients but many items will remain in Scotland, he added.
Mr Mackie said: "The result is a fitting tribute to Donald and Eleanor Taffner, who made an extraordinary contribution to Scotland's cultural heritage with their interest and promotion of the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his circle. We are honoured to have been chosen to sell their collection and I am pleased it has done so well."
Included in the sale was a group of watercolours, including Bouleternère, painted around 1925-7 in the south of France, which sold for £65,000. The still life Yellow Tulips, from 1919, sold for £130,000 and will remain in Scotland.
A pair of mahogany card room chairs
made especially for Mackintosh's greatest patron, Miss Cranston, for her Glasgow home, made £46,000.
After the sale, Donald Taffner Jnr said: "It's an extraordinary collection put together over many years by my parents. My sister Karen and I hope the future owners of these works will get as much pleasure from them as our parents certainly did."
The Taffners brought a number of high-profile TV programmes to the American public, including Three's Company, Too Close for Comfort and The Benny Hill Show. They were also involved with British shows including My Family and As Time Goes By.
In 1996, they supported Glasgow Museums' Charles Rennie Mackintosh exhibition, which toured to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
In the same year Eleanor was awarded the prestigious Lord Provost's Medal for her contribution to the arts in Scotland, and in 2005 she was made an MBE.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article