A painting by the often-forgotten partner of celebrated Scottish Colourist John Duncan Fergusson will go to auction later this week.

Anne Estelle Rice’s work is rarely remembered and isn’t as famous or sought after as Fergusson’s, who recently had work sold for almost £250,000 earlier this year.

Rose in the Hair fetched £243,951 at Lyon & Turnbull, now one of Rice’s will be sold as part of its Scottish Paintings & Sculpture sale on Thursday, December 5.

A rare, major painting by Rice created in Paris in 1911 has come to light more than 65 years after her death in 1959.

The American-born artists was held in high esteem by peers in the art world in pre-World War One Paris and this painting came during her relationship with Fergusson, which lasted from 1907 to 1913.

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Her work was shown in exhibitions around Europe including places such as London, Cologne, Budapest and Paris , including at Salon d’Automne, to which she was elected a Societaire by peers in 1910 in recognition of her contribution to the art movement.

She became a key figure in a group of Anglo-American artists and now her painting – A Bowl of Fruit – is expected to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000.

It stems from the key period when Rice and Fergusson were steeped first hand in Post-Impressionism and the latest developments in French art.

The Pennsylvania-born artists has Scottish and Irish roots and the painting is described as being ‘a highly confident, sensually charged and boldly coloured image of female empowerment’.

It was included in her solo exhibition at the Baillie Gallery in London in 1911 but the art has been forgotten about over the years.

Alice Strang, a senior specialist in Scottish art with Lyon & Turnbull, believes the appearance of The Bowl of Fruit on the market is something to be excited about the achievements of women artists are being re-evaluated.

She explains: “Rice is known through Fergusson’s many glorious portraits of his confident and beautiful partner. What is less well-known is that she was, arguably, as important an artist as he was in the heyday of modern art in Paris before 1914. 

(Image: Stewart Attwood)

"A Bowl of Fruit dates from the peak period in her career and is a wonderful and rare example of her work at its best."

In the same sale, the auction house is offering paintings, sculptures, works on paper and a sketchbook by Fergusson. It includes the oil painting, Boulevard Montparnasse, between £40,000 and £60,000 which Fergusson made not long after he arrived in the French capital.

F. C. B. Cadell and George Leslie Hunter also have art in the sale, with The Blue Jug expected to sell between £200,000 and £300,000

Mrs Strang describes The Blue Jug, in which the titular vessel is placed atop a red chair, one of Cadell and fellow Scottish Colourist S. J. Peploe's favourite props of the 1920s, as exemplifying “the works with which Cadell gained his status as one of Scotland’s leading artists of the twentieth-century. The sheer boldness of colour, design and technique epitomise the impact which Cadell exerted on the next generation of Scottish artists, not least Anne Redpath.”