The engineering archive belonging to the family of the renowned Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson was sold this Wednesday at an auction in Edinburgh (Scotland) for a total of 115,000 pounds (134,881 euros).
(See: The millionaire price that a tuna reached in the first auction of the year in Tokyo).
Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer known for novels such as ‘Treasure Island’, ‘A Children’s Garden of Verses’ and ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, and came from a renowned dynasty of lighthouse engineers.
Among the most notable items are the ‘Stevenson Family Archive’ made up of books, diaries, manuscripts and photographs and for which 9,072 pounds (10,640 euros) were raised and the ‘Bell Rock Work Yard Medal’, a medal Admiralty protection: awarded to John Spinks, for 4,536 pounds (5,320 euros).
Also included in the Stevenson Collection, spanning 200 years and four generations, is a stunning illustrated manuscript of designs for signals between Bell Rock Lighthouse and Arbroath Signal Tower, the oldest working lighthouse in the United Kingdom and considered the Robert Stevenson’s most imposing construction, which sold for 6,930 pounds (8,128 euros).
The auction was held this Wednesday online and in person in Edinburgh (Scotland) by the British house Lyon & Turnbull.
(See: This is how you can participate in the Dian sales and auctions, with discounts of up to 70%).
The author’s grandfather, Robert Stevenson, and his descendants designed most of Scotland’s lighthouses.
In this bid the focus was on the written legacy left by these Scottish engineers, pioneers and influential in the history of the country.
“Designing lighthouses, as you can imagine, was an extremely complex task, given the dangerous locations and the elements they had to endure,” said Cathy Marsden, head of Books and Manuscripts at Lyon & Turnbull.
Robert Louis Stevenson Auction
EFE
Among other items, such as the first literary editions of JRR’s Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the auction offered personal family documents dating back to Robert Stevenson’s birth in 1772. until Alan Stevenson’s death in 1971, including his rare books, manuscripts and maps.
“This is an impressive archive of a family who made a huge contribution not only to Scottish but also British engineering,” Marsden said.
Stevenson invented flashing lights and received a medal from the King of the Netherlands for it.
He also designed infrastructures such as railways and bridges; one of his constructions being the Regent Bridge in Edinburgh in 1814.
Three of Stevenson’s sons followed in the family’s footsteps (Alan, David and Thomas, the latter father of RL Stevenson) and designed lighthouses both in Scotland and abroad.
Lyon & Turnbull, one of the leading auctioneers of antiques and fine arts in the United Kingdom, raised almost 50,000 pounds (58,644 euros) for Stevenson’s collection.
(See: This would cost the six shirts that Lionel Messi wore at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar).
EFE
2024-02-08 00:28:19
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