Auction heads for £1 million (From Thisisdorset)

Auction heads for £1 million

8:20am Friday 11th April 2008

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A PAINTING by Picasso sold for £68,000 as sales at an auction in Dorchester headed towards £1 million.

The little picture - a watercolour and brush with ink measuring less than five by seven inches - was sold as the highlight of a paintings sale at Duke's saleroom.

Two paintings by artists renowned for their studies of horses - George Stubbs and Alfred Munnings - were also sold.

The room was packed for the sale of the Picasso.

Auctioneer Matthew Denney fielded just a handful of bids taking the lot from a starting price of £50,000 to its selling price within seconds.

His call to reach £70,000 met a brief silence and the picture of Pablo Picasso with a lover went under the hammer well within its top pre-sale estimate of £100,000.

The successful bid was made by a woman buying the picture as a present for her husband.

The gift cost around £80,000 including the buyer's premium of 20 per cent

Picasso painted the picture in 1901 or 1902 on a visit from Spain to Paris and he signed it in 1969 to confirm its authenticity.

The Munnings painting of an Irish grey mare sold for £55,000 and was also bought as a present.

Ian Curtis travelled from Sussex to bid for picture. He said: "It's a present for my wife - it was her birthday this week."

He said he was pleased with the price. The Stubbs picture of a grey horse was sold for £45,000 not including the buyer's premium to a telephone bidder.

The sale drew strong bidding for a number of other pictures including two studies by John Ruskin. One - a small watercolour of cherry blossom against a blue sky - soared past its £1,000 estimate to reach £22,000. And £22,000 was also the price for a 14th century study of three apostles, believed to have been painted by Antonio Veneziano in 1370 to 1380.

The picture, in tempera on a gold ground, was posted to Duke's from the vendor in Sydney, Australia.

Another high price painting was Jeunes Noirs a Cuba by Jules Pascin, which went for £32,000 under the hammer.

A lithograph by Matisse sold for £6,000. Lots included pictures by John Piper, a screen print of Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol, studies by Augustus John, pictures attributed to John Constable and a Landseer.

Duke's partner Guy Schwinge, who auctioned the Stubbs and Munnings lots, said he was delighted. He said: "It's amazing to get so many pictures by such major artists. It's so unusual to have pictures of this quality - especially a Picasso - sold outside London or New York.

"More and more people are looking to us as our reputation grows."

He said the owner of the Italian picture contacted Duke's after hearing about the auction house's success in selling two Renaissance panels by Fra Angelico last year for £1.7 million. Mr Schwinge said: "People are looking to us from all over the world now, both to buy and to sell."

He said around a tenth of the paintings in the sale - including the Picasso, the Stubbs and the Munnings - had come from the same UK private collection.

He would not reveal the name of the vendor - said to be a foreign royal family - but said the works had formed a wonderful collection when he went to view them.

The sale continues today. Highlights include boxes of glass slides pictures of T E Lawrence, letters by Ian Fleming, documents relating to the Titanic, a set of autographs of all four Beatles, furniture, clocks and other items.

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