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Today, Sotheby’s London sold the finest single collection of E.H. Shepard’s original drawings for Winnie-the-Pooh books to have come on the market. The collection of Stanley J. Seeger & Christopher Cone realised the extraordinary total of £1,262,863 ($1,968,046), well in excess of the pre-sale high estimate for the sale (est. £648,900-931,500).
The top-selling lot in this afternoon’s sale was one of the most iconic and best loved illustrations of Pooh, ‘He went on tracking, and Piglet . . . ran after him’ and was extremely sought-after and contested for by more than four bidders in the saleroom and on the telephones. The illustration sold for the remarkable sum of £115,250 – more than double its pre-sale low estimate (est. £40,000-60,000) – establishing a new auction record for a drawing by E.H. Shepard.
The next highest price was for, ‘Bump, bump, bump – going up the stairs’, which sold for £97,250 and then “When Christopher Robin had nailed it on in its right place…”, which brought £73,25.