8:50am Thursday 29th October 2009
By Scott Mullins
AUCTIONEERS got their teeth into a rare caricature of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs when the sketch went under the hammer.
The Victorian cartoon appeared in the satirical Punch magazine in 1855 and is by John Leech - a well known Victorian illustrator.
A sentence scrawled beneath the picture of a father and son visiting Crystal Palace Park and its model dinosaurs reads: “A visit to the antediluvian reptiles at Sydenham - Master Tommy strongly objects to having his mind improved”.
The drawing sold for £780 - above its £500 to £700 estimate - during Bonhams auctioneers’ picture sale in Knightsbridge on Tuesday (October 27).
A spokesman for Bonhams, one of the world’s oldest and largest auctioneers, said: “John Leech regularly worked for Punch and many other magazines, wittily observing day-to-day Victorian life and gently poking fun at its inhabitants.”
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