Painting may sell for world record

One of Baird's Victorian paintings is expected to fetch up to 100,000 dollars, or around 50,000.

The massive six feet by three feet picture, appropriately titled Golden Days, set a world record for a Baird work when it last came up for sale at Sotheby's in London nine years ago. Then, it sold for 33,350 and it has remained the Baird record ever since.

Now auctioneers Christie's think it could do even better and if the picture does sell for the expected 50,000 it will mean that since it was painted just over 100 years ago its value will have multiplied 250 times.

For when the painting first went on show at the Royal Academy in London in 1895 it was offered for sale at just 200.

Christie's say: 'Baird was a Scottish painter of landscapes, portraits, pastoral and genre scenes. He painted in oil, watercolour and pastel as well as being an engraver. He was born in Roxburghshire and studied art in Edinburgh, London and France.'

Nathaniel Hughes Baird moved to Rectory Cottage, Rodmell, in the 1920s and from that address submitted a painting entitled Misty Morning to an exhibition at the Royal Academy. He died in 1936

Another Baird painting, A March Day In Sussex, was sold at Sotheby's in 1990 for 3,850.