Norwich, England, October 22--Two paintings expected to make the highest prices at a Norfolk auction were unexpectedly upstaged today – by a carpet, according to EDP24.
Guide prices proved to be close to the mark for a portrait by Thomas Cooper Gotch, which fetched £12,500, ($12,900) and a watercolour print of a topless girl by Sir William Russell Flint, which went for £15,000.
But the old Turkish carpet, with a Persian pattern design of flowers and foliage, which was expected to make in the region of £800-£1200, caused the biggest stir by selling for £25,000 to a telephone bidder.
It was among 471 lots to go under the hammer at the sale of fine art, furniture and antiques which had been built up over the years by farmer Dick Baker and his wife, Liz, of Whitehall Farm, Holme, near Hunstanton.
Mrs Baker, who predeceased her husband in 1997, ran a well-known antiques and fabrics business, the Medina Galleries, at the Saturday Market Place, King's Lynn.
Today's sale at the farm followed the death earlier this year of Mr. Baker, 85, who flew fighter missions as a navigator in the second world war.
As well as pictures and furniture, the lots included porcelain, glass, silver and ceramics, and garden statuary, machinery and Mr. Baker's car.
The house and 122.9 acres, which had a guide price of £1.2m, have already been sold to a London buyer.
