By staff reporter

Last updated at 15:30, Friday, 02 July 2010

A new world record of £28,000 for a painting by Cumbrian artist Sheila Fell has been paid by a private collector.

Cottage Near Mount Grisdale, which sold for £28,000

The signed oil on canvas titled Cottage Near Mount Grisdale had been expected to make between £15,000 and £20,000. But the record sale exceeded the previous world record set in 2006.

Auctioneers Mitchells of Cockermouth sold a second painting by the artist, Autumn Evening, Cumberland, for £22,000 to the same private collector.

In the words of painter L S Lowry, who was Sheila Fell’s friend and mentor for more than 20 years, she was “the finest landscape artist of the mid-20th century”.

A miner’s daughter from Aspatria, her parents didn’t own a car so she always painted scenes within walking distance of her home. Lowry would later hire a car and take her into the countryside to paint. Her accidental death in 1979 at the age of 48, just as her creative powers were reaching their peak, has made her paintings more valuable and now highly collectable.

Another top price in the sale was achieved for a rare Sèvres porcelain dish circa 1781 which had been expected to realise a few hundred pounds.

The white porcelain dish and cover with hand painted flowers eventually sold for £7,800 to one of the world’s foremost collectors of Sèvres porcelain who had travelled to Cockermouth from Paris to attend the sale. The collector identified the dish as a missing piece from an important dinner service belonging to the French Royal family.

The overall sale total was £336,000, making it one of their best ever.

Mitchell’s auctioneer Mark Wise said: “The success of the Sheila Fell paintings and the Sèvres porcelain shows the power of international marketing via the internet.

“We may be a provincial saleroom in Cumbria but our marketplace is global. By putting our sale catalogue on the internet, collectors from all over the world know what’s for sale here in Cockermouth and some are prepared to travel quite a distance for the right piece.”

First published at 14:13, Friday, 02 July 2010
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk