The sale of Clarice Cliff, Art Deco & Design at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on March 18 included 27 works by the studio potter William Staite Murray (1881-1962).
Few pieces made a greater physical or financial statement than Persian Bird, a monumental stoneware vase standing 2ft 1in (63cm) high.
Thrown in two sections, the body incised and painted with two large peacocks, it was one of two huge vases exhibited at the Lefevre Galleries in 1931 (when it failed to sell) and then again at the Staite Murray retrospective in 1958 at the Leicester Galleries. It came for sale from the 40-year collection of Daryl Fromm.