Nearly a quarter of 25 Blythe Road’s total from the private London club sale came from a collection of original cartoons.
The 27-lot group included several examples each by Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) and Graham ‘Pont’ Laidler (1908-40), as well as works by William Heath Robinson, Henry Mayo Bateman and George du Maurier. This provided a rare opportunity for collectors to acquire market-fresh illustrations by some of the most sought-after cartoonists of the last century.
Among the highlights was an 8 x 11in (21 x 28cm) Pont cartoon titled I’m Perfectly Aware of that, my good man…, depicting a club member refusing to budge from his chair, which teeters perilously close to a crater in the floor caused by a collapsed ceiling.