Louis Wain Lucky Mascot Cat vase – £8500 at Kinghams.
But that record was broken at Kinghams on May 27-28 when this rare 12in (30cm) Lucky Mascot Cat vase took £8500 (plus 23% buyer’s premium) via thesaleroom.com against an estimate of £5000-6000.
The Futurist series of cats (plus a pig and a bulldog) was Wain’s most progressive and modish work.
Designed c.1914 at a time when Futurism was burning at its brightest, they were made during two periods of production either side of the First World War: initially in Austria and England and then Czechoslovakia and England in c.1919-22.
Famously, a shipment carrying most of the early output to the US was hit by a torpedo from a German U-boat.
This model made for Amphora c.1919 is modelled sitting upright with moulded ‘meow meow’ notes to the body and highlighted in blue and green on white ground.
