Picasso ceramics that fired up Richard Attenborough head to auction

The late, great British actor and director Richard Attenborough was ahead of the curve when it came to Picasso ceramics. Sixty-seven lots from the collection that he and his wife Sheila built over 50 years—starting in 1954 with a 30-franc (£3) ashtray of a bird catching a worm—are coming to auction at Sotheby’s London on 22 November with an estimated combined total “in the region of £1.5m”. The Attenboroughs’ first visit to the Madoura pottery studio in Vallauris, where Picasso dabbled in the medium from the late 1940s, turned into an annual pilgrimage during their family summer holidays on the Cote d’Azur. Lord Attenborough liked to drive there on or around 29 August to pick out a birthday present for himself. “I think my heart missed a beat,” he said of his 40th in 1963, when he finally came face-to-face with the “outrageously charming” Picasso. Price points are not what they used to be, but Attenborough’s ashtray remains a relative steal for would-be collectors: Oiseau au ver (1952), from an edition of 500, is estimated at £1,000-£2,000.