Delightful painting of water-feeding birds sells for more than double pre-sale estimate at Salisbury auction

                                                  

Seaby's study was one of star Lots in Salisbury auction

THIS unframed watercolour-on-linen, said to be of two Water Pipits, sold for more than double the highest estimate at an auction held earlier this month by Salisbury-based Woolley and Wallis.

Including the buyer's premium, the price achieved was £610 compared with a pre-sale estimate of £200 and £300.

The artist was Allen William Seaby (1867-1953), best known as an ornithological painter and printmaker who was also professor of fine art at the University of Reading.

It was he, too, who provided the illustrations for two Ladybird books - British Birds and Their Nests (1953) and A Second Book of British Birds and Their Nests (1954).

Seaby was the grandfather of another wildlife illustrator who became even more celebrated - Robert Gillmor.