Prints of King Charles watercolors are going under the hammer for £2,500
Karel’s masterpieces! Signed collection of watercolor prints from King’s Highgrove House goes under the hammer for £2,500
A selection of watercolors painted by King Charles from his beloved Highgrove Estate is going under the hammer for £2,500.
Prints of the paintings, dated between 2006 and 2012, will be on sale this month at the Woolley & Wallis auction house in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
An avid watercolourist, the King has painted the royal residence at Tetbury from a variety of viewpoints, including the Thyme Walk and The South Front.
The collection also includes paintings from the Queen Mother’s former home, the Castle of Mey in Caithness on the north coast of Scotland.
The prints are all signed and dated by the King and are being sold as a collection – although they could end up fetching much more than the listed price, after a painting of the King fetched 15 times the listed price last year.
A collection of watercolors painted by King Charles between 2006 and 2012 is going under the hammer at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury. Pictured: The Thyme Walk at Highgrove House, painted by King Charles in 2006
King Charles imagined tending the flowerbeds in the Thyme Walk of Highgrove House where he cultivated the gardens for many years
The auction follows an exhibition of more than 40 of the King’s watercolors at Sandringham in March this year.
Displayed in the estate’s ballroom, the collection included some of the monarch’s Highgrove paintings, as well as other landscapes.
Other paintings in the exhibition showed scenes in the Welsh hills, the Scottish Highlands and scenes in Windsor Castle and the Norfolk countryside.
Last October, auctioneers were stunned when a reproduction of a watercolor painting of the king depicting Balmoral Castle sold for £5,737 including premium – about 15 times the original estimate.
A watercolor painted by King Charles in 2011 and signed by the monarch shows the south side of Highgrove House
Considered King Charles’s most beloved royal residence, Highgrove House is the inspiration behind many of the paintings in the collection
Painted in 2007, this artwork depicts the terrace of Highgrove House and is part of the collection going under the hammer
A winter wonderland! This watercolor of The Sanctuary at Highgrove House was painted in the winter of 2010
Also included in the collection is a painting of The Castle of Mey, the royal residence of the Queen Mother, on the north coast of Scotland
It had been valued by Bonhams at just £400-£600 during the Scottish Home sale before bids started flying in from all over the world.
Hamish Wilson, curator of Bonhams’ Scottish Home sale, said: ‘This charming print combined the King’s passion for painting and his deep affection for Scotland.
It has, of course, acquired a special resonance and appeal from recent events, and I am not surprised that it was bid so enthusiastically, nor that it exceeded its estimation so much.’
The print, which was sold framed and packaged, is number 18 in a limited edition of 100 reproductions of a painting of Balmoral Castle by the King.
May Matthews, general manager of Bonhams, said: ‘We were quite stunned to see the level of interest in this.
“We have interest from all over the world. Prints that Charles has made usually cost around 400 to 600 pounds.’