Schranz oils fetch £27,000 at auction

A set of three oil on canvas paintings by Giovanni Schranz (1794-1882) were sold for £27,000 (Lm16,200) by Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull on Friday.

The main painting showed HMS Raleigh entering Grand Harbour while the other two showed HMS Zebra and HMS Cambrian.

The estimated price in the auctioneers' catalogue had been £20,000-£30,000.

The paintings had been purchased by the 9th Earl of Dalhousie on his way to or home from Egypt.

The auctioneers do not identify the purchaser.

HMS Zebra was a 'Cruizer class brig-sloop of 18 guns, launched in 1815 and wrecked in the Levant in 1840. Between October 1828 and January 1829, when stationed in the Mediterranean, her Captain was Commander Edmund Williams Gilbert'.

HMS Raleigh was a 'Cruizer' class brig-sloop of 18 guns, launched in 1806 and sold in 1841 and HMS Cambrian was a frigate, or 5th rate, of 40 guns, launched in 1797 and wrecked in the Mediterranean in 1828.

The auctioneers sold two other Schranz paintings for a record £98,000 last November. The Schranz family arrived in Malta in 1817.