American scene by Terence Cuneo sold for £6600 at Canterbury Auction Galleries.
The 2ft 6in x 2ft 1in (76 x 63cm) oil painting of an American steelworks, showing a Chevrolet truck approaching a rail crossing with one of Cuneo’s distinctive steam trains in the background, was signed and dated December 1948.
Taken to one of the saleroom’s valuation days and placed on the auction’s catalogue cover, it sold to a private collector in north Kent for an above-estimate £6600 on June 11.
This is not the first time such an American steelworks scene has come up at auction. An identical work sold at Gildings in Market Harborough for £2100 in 2011, while a picture of a red crane and train at a building site, also dated 1948, sold for £3250 (with fees) at Christie’s in 2010.
