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‘Signals from the Bell Rock Lighthouse to the Arbroath Signal Tower’, a 19th-century manuscript estimated at £1,200-£1,800 ($1,525-$2,290) at Lyon & Turnbull.

Celebration of Scottish engineering on display at Lyon & Turnbull Feb. 7

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EDINBURGH – A cache of material from a well-known Scottish engineering dynasty will be offered at Lyon & Turnbull. The Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs auction on Wednesday, February 7 includes 50 lots from the Stevenson family – designers across four generations of many of the U.K.’s lighthouses. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

Robert Stevenson (1772-1850), the grandfather of Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson, built 19 lighthouses in a remarkable career that began with the construction of the Little Cumbrae lighthouse in Ayrshire at just 19. His masterpiece was the Bell Rock Lighthouse constructed off the coast of Arbroath between 1807 and 1810 that is the oldest working rock lighthouse in the United Kingdom.

Through 28 hand-drawn and -colored illustrations, a manuscript titled Signals from the Bell Rock Lighthouse to the Arbroath Signal Tower demonstrates the workings of its communication system. The main methods of signalling were via colored flags and large copper balls that were raised to indicate all was well. The manuscript is estimated at £1,200-£1,800 ($1,525-$2,290).

As befitting a family of Scottish civil engineers, the works of architect Robert Adam were prominent in the Stevenson family library. The sale is led at £7,000-£10,000 ($8,910-$12,725) by a group of presentation drawings from the Adam studio created for Joseph Home Esq. of Ninewells House on the Scottish Borders. The three pen with gray ink wash drawings showing different elevations of the property are signed ‘Robt. Adam Archt. 1790’ to the lower left corner, although they are thought to be by another hand.

A first edition of one of Adam’s most influential books, his 1764 Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia, including 61 numbered and engraved plates, is estimated at £3,000-£5,000 ($3,815-$6,360).

David Alan Stevenson (1891-1971) was the last of the Stevenson lighthouse engineers – and a keen collector of maps and atlases from the 1920s. His library included copies of the first Latin edition of Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographiae Universalis (1572) and a 1653 printing of the first volume of the Novus Atlas, sive Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Jan Janssonius. Both carry estimates of £3,000-£5,000 ($3,815-$6,360).

Estimated at £3,000-£4,000 ($3,815-$5,090) is a 1592 Cologne printing of Jani Bussemcher’s Europae Totius Orbis Terrarum, featuring 40 hand-colored maps in contemporary vellum.

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‘Signals from the Bell Rock Lighthouse to the Arbroath Signal Tower’, a 19th-century manuscript estimated at £1,200-£1,800 ($1,525-$2,290) at Lyon & Turnbull.
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One of three drawings for Ninewells House, for Joseph Home from the office of Robert Adam, estimated at £7,000-£10,000 ($8,910-$12,725) at Lyon & Turnbull.
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‘Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia’ by Robert Adam, estimated at £3,000-£5,000 ($3,815-$6,360) at Lyon & Turnbull.
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1592 Cologne printing of ‘Europae Totius Orbis Terrarum’ by Jani Bussemcher, estimated at £3,000-£4,000 ($3,815-$5,090) at Lyon & Turnbull.
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Volume 1 of the ‘Novus Atlas, sive Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ by Jan Janssonius, estimated at £3,000-£5,000 ($3,815-$6,360) at Lyon & Turnbull.
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