MADAM – I was much taken with the George Du Maurier ‘aesthetic’ drawing at Wallis & Wallis (ATG No 2409).
However, having entirely forgotten to put in a bid, I later logged onto thesaleroom.com in some trepidation and with the all-too-familiar hope that it had sold for more than I would have been willing to pay: nothing scourges the soul more than the horrid realisation that an object of desire has been knocked down for a pittance.
So I was delighted and relieved to learn that it had made £1000 hammer – a price that its quality and relative fame fully justify, in my opinion. Given the subject matter, the composition and the level of detail it must have a claim to be Du Maurier’s finest drawing – but despite Andrew Sim’s brave assertion, it is not, I think, the artist’s most celebrated.