Sotheby's auctions unpublished Winnie the Pooh drawing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-33522959

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A rare and unpublished Winnie the Pooh drawing by EH Shepard is expected to fetch up to £50,000 at auction.

The ink sketch, showing Pooh and Piglet looking at a watch at the foot of Owl's House, never made it into AA Milne's books and was kept by the artist.

Sotheby's described the illustration as a "significant" and "rare unpublished example of Shepard's work".

It is estimated to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000 at auction in London on Tuesday.

The drawing was presented to composer Julian Slade at the first performance of a musical version of Winnie the Pooh at the Phoenix Theatre, London, in December 1970.

'Favourite children's book'

AA Milne wrote the Pooh books in the 1920s while he lived in Ashdown Forest, near Hartfield in East Sussex.

In December, a 1928 drawing of Pooh, Piglet and Christopher Robin playing Pooh Sticks was sold for £314,500 by Sotheby's.

A poll of more than 2,000 adults in 2014 named Winnie the Pooh as the favourite children's book of the past 150 years.

Sotheby's is also auctioning a 1931 illustration of Toad and Ratty from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.

The drawing, entitled "Toad told Rat all his adventures", showing the pair drinking coffee at a table, is expected to sell for between £10,000 and £15,000.

Shepard, who died in 1976, was also a noted political cartoonist, but became best-known for his children's book illustrations.

However, he famously came to despise his association with Winnie the Pooh, and was heard to describe the character as "that silly old bear" in later life.