Poppies: flower fairies, a watercolour by Margaret Tarrant, sold for £4200 at Bellmans.
Offered without estimate or reserve, the 100-lot collection up for sale on July 17 formed the remnants of the deceased estate and featured a variety of landscapes, marine pictures and figures by both known and unknown hands.
The most valuable lot was Poppies: flower fairies (above), a 10 x 7in (25cm x 18cm) watercolour by English illustrator and children’s author Margaret Tarrant (1888-1959). Signed and dated 1921, it took £4200.
Tarrant’s first success came at the age of just 20, on an edition of Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies (1908). Her work creating high-quality illustrations and prints continued well into the early 1950s.
