Exclusive:The 'other' painting of skating on Duddingston Loch that has auction house in spin

Now Charles Lees’ A Scene on Duddingston Loch, near Edinburgh - which depicts the meeting place of the Edinburgh Skating Club, regarded as the earliest club of its kind in the world - is to be sold at auction, where it is expected to reach between £70,000 and £100,000.

Lees, who was born in Fife, trained with Henry Raeburn, who painted arguably the most famous Duddingston Loch skating picture, The Skating Minister. While The Skating Minister, which depicts the Reverend Robert Walker skating on the frozen loch, was an unusual subject for Raeburn, Lees’ painting is the first and principal treatment of a subject that became a defining series in the artist’s career.

Other related paintings by Lees include Skaters; Duddingston Loch By Moonlight, Winter afternoon: Curlers and Skaters on Linlithgow Loch and Winter Day: A Slide, Duddingston Loch.

Brandon Lindberg, head of British European art at Dreweatts, said he expected the painting - which is the cover item for the auction house’s Old Master and British Paintings sale - to attract a lot of interest.

He said: “I'm always fascinated by these group portraits where you have a technical tour de force, while at the same time, it's a documentary record of different characters and different people from different walks walks of life. It really gives you a vivid insight into 19th century society, or certainly a an idealised view of it.

“What's nice is that that Lees was taught by Raeburn, who painted The Skating Minister. So there's that direct connection and it's the same setting of Duddingston Loch.”

The painting is believed to depict members of the Edinburgh Skating Club, which was founded in the 1740s. To gain membership, applicants had to perform a figure of eight on alternate feet and then jump over a series of hats placed on the ice. It is not believed that Lees himself was a member.

The listing in Dreweatts sale catalogue stated: “With the silhouette of Craigmillar Castle on the horizon, the skillfully rendered atmospheric conditions evoke an unmistakable sense of seasonal celebration and frivolity. It is possible that the more graceful skaters were members of the Edinburgh Skating Club, a society dedicated to figure-skating who regularly met at Duddingston, and whose members were made up of local professionals and landed gentry.”

Lees’ most famous work, The Golfers, was acquired by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2002 for over £2.5 million, while a finished oil-on-board sketch sold at Sotheby's New York for $317,500 (£237,000) in February this year.

Mr Lindberg said: “The Skating Minister was a very atypical subject for Raeburn, it was much more of an outlier, whereas Lees went on to make his name painting these group sporting pictures. Skating was very close to Lee's heart, as was curling.” `

A Scene on Duddingston Loch, near Edinburgh was last sold at Sotheby's in London in 2013, for £110,500.

Mr Lindberg said: “Obviously, golfing is a much broader, probably more commercial subject and generally Victorian prices are maybe not as strong as they were, but when you get exceptional work that comes on the market, often collectors come out of the woodwork for it and we're hoping that that's going to be the case here. It's such an arresting image.”