Tennants sold this Victorian anthropomorphic diorama of card-playing, cigar-smoking red squirrels, c.1870-1900, for £11,000.
Very much in the manner of the great Walter Potter of Bramber (he of The Kittens Wedding and Rabbit School), it features six rodents in a lavishly furnished interior. Four are playing cards around a pedestal table.
Reputedly the diorama came into the vendor’s family in lieu of a debt owed to their grandfather in the early 20th century. It was offered with an estimate of £3500-5500 but sold at £11,000.
