Charles Lees's 19th century oil painting of Musselburgh golfers could fetch up to £500,000.
A 19th century golf picture, hailed as the world’s most important portrait of the sport, is expected to sell for £500,000 at auction in Edinburgh.
Charles Lees’s A Summer Evening on the Musselburgh Links: Golfers, oil has been in private hands since the 1930s and will be sold off at Bonhams’ Scottish Art sale on October 11.
The auction house said it was a “rare and historic” image of Scotland’s oldest golf course and it is rare for golf paintings to come on the market.
Cupar-born Lees, who died in 1880, started out as a portrait artists, but soon turned to depicting recreational sporting scenes, mainly golfing, curling and, strangely, chess. Musselburgh has been a golf course for at least 555 years.
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