The late, great British actor and director Richard Attenborough was ahead of the curve when it came to Picasso ceramics if the prices paid at an auction of such works held today (22 November) is anything to go by. Sixty-seven lots from the collection that he and his wife Sheila built over 50 years went under the hammer at Sotheby’s London with an estimated combined total “in the region of £1.5m”. All of the lots were sold in a “white glove” sale that fetched £3m in total ($3.8m; with buyer’s premium). The top lot, Grand vase aux femmes nues (1950), went for £728,750 ($909,407) and even smaller items such as an ashtray decorated with a bull (Taureau, 1952) leapt over estimate (£1,000-£2,000; sold for £5,000). 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.
