14/09/2007

Zeebrugge-Harwich fetches £375 at Christie's

A vintage railway poster by Northampton-born artist Henry George Gawthorn has sold for £1,140 at a Christie's auction in London. Yesterday's sale was nearly double the £600 expected for the 39in by 25in poster of Middlesbrough docks produced by Gawthorn for the London and North Eastern Railway. It was one of three travel posters by Gawthorn,which sold for a total of £2,295. One poster – emblazoned with the words "Visit India" – sold for £780, while another, advertising the Harwich-Zeebrugge ferry, fetched £375 . A poster by Gawthorn, who was born at Northampton in 1879 and died in 1941, caused a sensation five years ago when it sold for £21,150. The poster depicting St Andrew's, the home of The Royal and Ancient Golf Course, was a world record price for a railway poster.