Art News

Liz Taylor’s nuptial bed in Scottish Victoriana sale at Lyon and Turnbull auction house

EDINBURGH (REUTERS).- One of the world’s finest private collections of 19th century Victoriana goes under the hammer at auction in Edinburgh next week, including a four-poster bed in which Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor celebrated the last of her many honeymoons. The collection — amassed by the Forbes family in the United States — includes furnishings, including paintings, furniture, household wares – and framed items of Queen Victoria’s underwear – from Old Battersea House on the south bank of London’s Thames river opposite Chelsea. There is also a painting of Victoria on horseback with her Scottish servant John Brown holding the reins. She commissioned the painting from a photographer to present to Brown on his 50th birthday, and it remained in the family until it was sold and added to the Forbes collection in the 1980s. Other works