Original map from Winnie-the-Pooh sells for record-breaking £430,000
Written by News on 11/07/2018
The original map of The Hundred Acre Wood, illustrated by Winnie-the-Pooh artist EH Shepard, has set a new record at auction.
The illustrated map sold for £430,000 at auction house Sotheby’s, while four other original Winnie-the-Pooh illustrations fetched a further £487,500 – a total of £917,500.
The sketch from 1926 was estimated to go for £100,000-150,000 at the London sale, but the final sale price more than doubled its estimate.
It also surpassed the previous record sale price set in 2014 when an original drawing of AA Milne’s characters playing poohsticks sold for £314,000.
The map was unseen by the public for nearly half a century and had featured in the opening pages of AA Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, as well as in the opening sequence of the Disney film Winnie-the-Pooh and The Honey Tree.
Described by Sotheby’s as “probably the most famous map in English literature”, it depicts the woodland world from Milne’s book and characters including Eeyore and Christopher Robin.
The illustration is thought to be the work of Milne’s son Christopher Robin.
It is signed off with the words “Drawn by me and Mr Shepard helpd” (sic).
It was first sold by Sotheby’s for £650 in 1968, before it was sold again to a private collector two years later for £1,700.
Among the other sketches was a drawing from the book The House At Pooh Corner, in which Pooh and Christopher Robin are saying their final goodbye.
AA Milne was a British author who was known for his Winnie-the-Pooh books, as well as his poetry collections including When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.
Many of his works were inspired by his son Christopher Robin and the young boy’s stuffed toys, whom the books’ characters are based on.
(c) Sky News 2018: Original map from Winnie-the-Pooh sells for record-breaking £430,000
