Three prints bought for a song in car boot and jumble sales are set to make over £20,000 at Bonhams' Print sale in London on November 30.
Incredibly, Tillers of the Soil by British-Canadian artist Sybil Andrews was originally bought at a church fete in Wellington, New Zealand, for the equivalent of £20.
This very strong and sought after image portrays a team of horses at plough cresting a ridge. It was executed in 1934 and its bold lines and exuberant colours are typical of Andrew's work of this period. The piece is estimated to sell for £10,000-15,000.
Meanwhile, Maurits Escher's Order and Chaos 1 was picked up at a West Country car boot sale for just £1. In the words of the buyer: "If they'd asked for a fiver I wouldn't have paid it".
 Strong and sought after: Tillers of the Soil by Sybil Andrews |
Now estimated at between £3,000-4,000, this 1950 lithograph from the master of impossible reality shows all kinds of broken and used objects - a pipe, a bottle, an open and empty sardine can - surrounding a perfect geometrical construction.
Also appearing is Leonard Beaumont's The Rush Hour, again dated to 1934, which was found in a charity shop in north London and only cost the lucky buyer around £30.00.
More restrained tonally than the Andrews, it depicts the mad whirlwind of rush hour in a style which mixes French cubism and English Vorticism with a dash of Italian futurism. It is estimated at £2,000-3,000.
"This just goes to show that there is a lot of work out there waiting to be rediscovered," said Bonhams' Head of Prints, Robert Kennan.
"Prints in particular can sometime be overlooked in favour of paintings and are often worth far more than people realise."
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