£37,700
Auction: 11 October 2023 at 11:00 BST
pencil on paper, inscribed ANEMONIE/ FOUND AT LAMLASH ARRAN MAY 1893/ DRAWN MAY 1896, later framed
Provenance: Acquired by William Meldrum, after the Memorial Exhibition 1933
and by descent to his son, James Meldrum
Given to The Glasgow Art Club by Eva Meldrum, widow of James Meldrum, 1984
Exhibited: Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Museum Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928): Architecture, Design and Painting, 17th August - 8th September 1968, no. 285, titled 'Anemone and Daisy'.
Note: Mackintosh began creating flower sketches as far back as his student days in the 1880s. ‘Anemones’ is one such early example. He notes in the cartouche that the plant was found at Lamlash on Arran in 1893, presumably pressed, and then sketched three years later in 1896. These trips and the company he kept (recorded by the inclusion of his friend’s initials in many cases) were clearly important to him. The sketches represent a journal of sorts, and it perhaps speaks to a sensitivity (as well as his great precision) that he chose to depict a re-discovered flower from a past excursion.
This sketch, and the other works by Mackintosh in this sale, belonged to James Meldrum, having come from the collection of his father William Meldrum, Mackintosh’s friend and fellow student at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1880s. James Meldrum notably staged the 1933 Memorial Exhibition of Mackintosh’s work in the MacLellan Galleries on Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street, along with his friend William Davidson. After James’ death, his widow Eva gifted the vast body of the William Meldrum Collection to the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. The series of works offered here were gifted to the Glasgow Art Club in the 1980s and now appear on the open market for the first time.