THE death recently of the highly respected and knowledgeable Whitby auctioneer Des Burton left something of a vacuum in the world of North-East marine pictures. The market, like nature, abhors such and the Scarborough firm of David Duggleby has sailed up the coast and berthed in Mr Burton's old saleroom. I viewed the launch of this new enterprise at their first sale.

The firm's confidence was reflected by the title of the sale - the Whitby Picture Sale - and by the oil by Frank Henry Mason called In Company that it had chosen for the catalogue cover. This showed "nineteen clipper ships in full sail", that's 25 sails per ship, a drama heightened by an intense navy or poster blue sea. In Company made a sound £1,900, just above expectations.

The walls were covered in pictures, 400, all the way to the rafters. Some bright modern lighting was installed and the room was humming with company, with the viewers in sociable mood, post-work, pre-dinner. This combined with accurate and reasonable estimated prices resulted in strong bidding with little unsold, though the prized work, a John Callow oil called A breezy day off Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland which carried hopes up to £10,000, did not reach its reserve. The other heavyweight oils drew about £4,000 apiece including an elegant Frank Mason of Scottish racing yachts and two by Henry Redmore, one of Fishing smacks in choppy seas outside Scarborough harbour, the other Shipping in a heavy swell, with Whitby harbour beyond.

That said, I generally prefer watercolours, not just because they are usually less expensive, but for the liquid effects obtainable and for their utility in the soft low intensity light (as in gloom) characteristic of our coast. The English impressionist movement has thrown up a few minor masters, one being the locally active Frank Rousse (flourished 1897-1917) who was well represented at the sale with 14 pictures. These made about £1,500 a time for shimmering Whitby harbours, but only a third of that for sheep and heather a few miles inland.

One Rousse of a quayside was only expected to make a low £500 because it was foxed. Foxing and fading can be the problem with watercolours; they are delicate things and bright light bleaches their complexions and damp can bring them out in spots.

Jazzy work by Roland Henry Hill made either side of £1,000 a picture with £1,950 for a flowing flock of sheep near Ellerby. A strange watercolour by Arthur Tucker (1864-1929) of Runswick Bay, all ochre-coloured grass rather than blue sea, made a surprising £2,550 though the auctioneers had estimated it so.

A spare etching of yachts by Frank Henry Mason made a stylish £250 and a pair of coloured prints by George Baxter showing the gruesome massacre with clubs, arrows and spears of a Rev J Williams (the "Lamented Missionary") in the South Seas, found favour with someone who forfeited £240.

My favourite, an oil on panel, was Children playing on the sands in the lower harbour, Whitby, a fluid work by Lionel Townsend Crawshaw (1864-1949) and worth every penny of the £4,900 it charmed, which was nicely above the top estimate of £3,000