Cleaner’s family £45,000 better off after rare ceramics sale

© Chiswick Auctions A finely-potted prime-period bowl by Lucie Rie with a turquoise and manganese glaze - expected to make £20,000-30,000

The family of a north London cleaner are £45,000 better off after some rare ceramics she was given by her employer sold at auction.

Mrs Annie Gaughan cleaned for critically acclaimed ceramicist Lucie Rie for many years at her home in Finchley Road and was given a bowl and some moulds when she retired.

On Wednesday they sold for £45,250 at auction with bids coming in from around the world for the sale at Chiswick Auctions.

The bowl, made in the 1980s and decorated with a turquoise glaze, sold for £35,000 to a collector in Tokyo while the moulds were bought by a Rie devotee in Switzerland.

Rie, a refugee from Nazi Germany, is hailed as one of the greatest potters of the 20^th century and her collectors including legendary fashion designer Issey Miyake who organised an exhibition of her work in Japan.

Mrs Gaughan’s son Austin said he had decided to sell the keepsakes to help fund his son’s attempt to buy a house.

He said: “We’ve had the items now for 25 years or more. My mum left them to me and my wife and my son. He’s now looking to buy a property and we thought it was a good way of getting him on the ladder.

“The £45,000 will go some way to a nice deposit.”

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