Scottish golf painting could fetch £200,000

Work by renowned Fife artist Charles Lees to be sold in Edinburgh

A painting of golfers playing a round on the world’s oldest course is expected to fetch up to £200,000 at auction in Edinburgh this week.

‘A Summer Evening on the Musselburgh Links: Golfers’ was painted by Fife artist Charles Lees in 1859.

It shows two groups of caddies driving off the tee and sinking putts on Musselburgh Links, near Edinburgh, which has been used for golf for more than 500 years.

The oil painting, which has been in private hands since the 1930s, will go under the hammer at Bonhams’ Scottish Art sale on Wednesday, estimated at £150,000 to £200,000.

Chris Brickley, Bonhams’ head of Scottish Art, said: “Golf in the mid-19th Century was a game for the gentry, or the wealthy, partly due to the cost of equipment.

“In the evenings, however, the caddies who carried the clubs – loose rather than in bags – were allowed to play among themselves. Lees depicts such a scene here.”

Charles Lees (1800-1880), from Cupar, first found fame as a portrait painter, but in the 1840s turned increasingly to sporting scenes including golf, curling, shinty and even chess.

Lees’ painting of ‘Golfers: A Grand Match Played Over St Andrews Links’ is widely regarded as the most famous golf painting in the world, and cost the Scottish National Portrait Gallery more than £2.5 million to acquire in 2002.

Picture: Mike Day/Saltire News. A section ‘A Summer Evening on the Musselburgh Links: Golfers’ which was painted by Charles Lees in 1859. The painting will go under the hammer on Wednesday.