Mackintosh cabinet offered without reserve takes £36,000
This Arts and Crafts music cabinet, entered into a recent sale at Robertson’s of Kinbuck, near Dunblane, without reserve, turned out to be a hitherto lost design by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
The consignor was a local lady who had stored it in her garage for several years. Her grandmother had purchased it from a Dumfries saleroom sometime in the 1950s although its significance was never appreciated. Research shows that a watercolour for the design is in the collection of the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow. Signed and dated 1898, it is inscribed Music Cabinet for Mrs Pickering, Braxfield, Lanark.
Mackintosh produced cabinets with the same distinctive cornice for other clients during the same year, including those made for the Edinburgh printer Alex Seggie.