White star Line poster could fetch £9,000

TITANIC: Sister ship of disaster liner painted by Dundee artist is featured

A rare poster by a Dundee artist advertising transatlantic trips on the Titanic and her sister ship the Olympic could fetch a six-figure sum at an auction in America this month.

The 20x24 inch poster was produced around 1911 by Dundee-born artist James Scrimgeour Mann. Although it features an image of the Olympic, it is the mention of the ill-fated Titanic that makes the poster so desirable.

It is expected to fetch between $8,000 and $12,000 (£6,000 to £9,000) when it comes up for sale at Swann Auction Galleries in New York.

James Scrimgeour Mann was born in Dundee, on August 30 1883 to Dundeeborn Marjory Mann and Dundee ship captain James Mann.

He was 62 when he died in Wales in 1946.

He produced his poster just a few months before the Titanic disaster.

His father was master of the Dundee barque Orion from 1897 until his death in 1901 and was a particularly colourful character.

In November 1895, a San Francisco newspaper said Captain Mann led “a merry ship with a menagerie of chickens, rabbits, a monkey and a parrot. There were three dogs plus pigeons in the captain’s cabin.”

Captain Mann died at sea, off the coast of South Africa, in 1901.

More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, on April 15 1912, during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

The rare poster which is expected to fetch up to £9,000 at the forthcoming auction.