Rare opportunity to bid at auction for watercolour of marshland bird that has never been recorded in Britain

                                                    

Spur-winged Plover - also known as Spur-winged Lapwing

BECAUSE it is not on the British list, interest may be limited when a study of a Spur-winged Plover goes under the hammer at auction tomorrow June 4.

It is the work of Suffolk-based female artist Tory Lawrence who died, aged 86, last year. 

It is not known under what circumstances she was inspired to carry out the work (in 1995) given that the nearest the species occurs in Britain is marshland habitats in the eastern Mediterranean. 

A bird found dead in Hailsham, Sussex, in 1910, is thought to have been an escapee from a privately-owned ornamental collection.

The painting, a watercolour, is Lot 644 in the sale of Modern British and  20th Century Art  to be held by Salisbury-based Woolley and Wallis. 

The pre-sale estimate is that it will fetch between £150 and £250.

Earlier in the auction, an enchanting watercolour, heightened with gouache, of a singing Wren by Lancashire-based Roger McPhail (71) - Lot 606 - is expected to fetch between £250 and £350.

The thorns on a blackberry bush hold no fears for Rodger McPhail's autumn Wren