Spend some time browsing the catalogue for Sotheby's August 29th "Scottish & Sporting Pictures" auction, and you might just find yourself humming a tune from "Brigadoon," and wondering if it's not too early in the day for a neat Glenlivet.  Certainly nothing conjures Scotland like paintings entitled "The Highland Lassie," or "Cauld Blows the Wind Frae East to West."  But the 248 works of art offered in this auction are surprisingly diverse in subject matter and style.  Flora and fauna make a respectable showing in the still lifes of Anne Redpath, one of which is slyly titled Grey Still Life with Honesty (above). Perhaps "honesty" is code for "freshness of style," as her pictures of flowers in vases joyfully escape the frequent doldrums of traditional still life. Romantic landscapes abound, many aptly titled with oft-forgotten words like "gloaming" (try incorporating that into your everyday vocabulary!). Mary Queen of Scots makes a cameo appearance, while grazing cattle in soft focus and rare birds complete with brilliant plumage make quite a few.

But don't be alarmed: modernity starts to creep in about two-thirds of the way through the catalogue, and can be seen in top form in the seven paintings by Jack Vettriano that are up for sale. They were commissioned as a set by Sir Terence Conrad to decorate the walls of his Bluebird Club in London, named for the car collection of Sir Malcolm Campbell.  Campbell's Bluebirds brought him motor racing glory, and also serve as handsome subjects for Vettriano's paintings. Bluebird at Bonneville (right) is expected to bring in the largest sum of the seven, priced at £400,000-600,000. Vettriano evokes that kind of nostalgia-inducing old-world glamour we associate with "the good life" of the mid-twentieth century, with his clean lines, rich colors, dapper young men in crème-colored suits, and slightly scornful-looking femmes fatales.

As a companion to the Scottish & Sporting Pictures auction, Sotheby's is offering a "Fine Modern and Vintage Sporting Guns" auction the previous day; both are at the Gleneagles Hotel. The guns come from the collection of Sir Jackie Stewart, also a veteran of motor racing and an avid game hunter. The top lots include a pair of J. Purdey & Sons 20-bore single-trigger self-opening sidelock ejector guns (left), priced at £50,000-70,000. Those interested in pieces with some (regal) history will find a pair of similar design that were commissioned for Prince Leopold of Battenburg, and used by Lord Mountbatten (great grandson to Queen Victoria), at £35,000-50,000.  Exotic accessories are also included: a zebra skin shooting set, and an elephant skin gun slip.  Gamely pieces in more ways than one.

—EMILY CREGG