TWO oil paintings by the outstanding Bushey-based Black Beauty artist Lucy Kemp-Welch (1869 to 1958) fetched £71,700 when they were auctioned at Christie's in London on Friday.
Before the auction art experts estimated the pictures would fetch only £45,000.
One of the pictures, Cart Horses on The Downs, was tipped to fetch up to £10,000.
But frantic bidding pushed the final price up to £37,045 more than three times its pre-sale estimate.
The picture, measuring 24 inches by 18 inches, was painted during the First World War.
Moments earlier another Kemp-Welch painting, titled: The River Way, was sold at Christie's for £34,655. That was expected to fetch up to £35,000.
Lucy Kemp-Welch studied art at the Herkomer School in Bushey and lived in the village.
Bournemouth-born Miss Kemp-Welch was in her mid 40's, in 1915, when she was chosen by publishers J.M. Dent, to illustrate the children's classic, Black Beauty.
Cart Horses on The Downs was painted at around that time.
During the Boer War and the First World War she became fascinated by cavalry horses, which she painted both on the battlefield and at exercise, earning her the friendship of Robert Baden-Powell, who founded the Boy Scouts.
It was Baden-Powell who provided her with Black Prince, the model for Black Beauty.
June 10, 2002 17:30
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