A painting by the Plymouth artist Beryl Cook, who died recently, fetched a world record price today.
The oil on board work, "Granny with her Pet Mouse", fetched more than double its estimate in a Bonhams sale of 20th Century British Art.
It went for £69,600 – a world record for a work by the artist once described by Victoria Wood as "Rubens with jokes".
A spokeswoman for Bonhams in London said the figure was a "world record price" for a work by the artist.
A second work in the sale, The Dolphin, also soared in price to £66,000, also smashing the previous record price for Cook’s work which stood at £28,800, Bonhams said.
The sales figures include a 20% buyer’s premium.
Cook died in May aged 81, following more than 30 years as one of Britain’s most popular and commercial artists.
Born in Egham, Surrey, in 1926, as Beryl Frances Lansley, she followed a varied career path, including working as a showgirl, before finding her forte lay in painting.
In Zambia, Cook took up painting and on the family’s return to England moved to Looe where she set herself the task of decorating the walls of their cottage herself.
After moving to Plymouth in 1970, while running a bed and breakfast with husband John, she was "discovered" by admiring guests who eventually persuaded her to sell a few of her pictures.
Cook used anything that she could get her hands on as material to paint on, driftwood picked up from the beach, plywood, bits of wardrobe, even toilet seats.
Each picture was carefully thought out and sketched beforehand, often secretively under the table at her favourite local pub in Plymouth, the Dolphin, before being worked on at home and translated into oil.
The Dolphin was where she was often found on a Friday, sitting in the corner sipping her gin and tonic, observing the clientele who were to be the inspiration for many of her pictures.
Hello Sailors!
The Navy visits the Dolphin
(From the Plymouth Herald)
