12/27/2004: Ancient British carving

[Undertoad]

IotD starts in the US where sometimes it's sad to live in a country without so much history.

Johnny Beeston, a stonemason, lived in the southwest of England where there is a tremendous amount of history. One day he stopped by a quarry and bought a bunch of stone to carve, and in the lot he found the above stone that someone had already been carving.

He thought it was interesting so he figured he'd keep it. His pet cat Winkle had just died, so he decided to use the stone to mark the grave.

Eventually Beeston died too, but a decade later, an amateur historian came across the grave marker and realized that it was a rare and important carving about 1000 years old. BBC says:

Alexander Cader, of Sotheby's, said: "The relief is made from Oolithic limestone and is incredibly rare, as few reliefs of this period have survived, time normally having worn the surface detail away.

"The carving is believed to have originally been a section of a cross shaft, or part of a larger panel - the figure of St Peter is clearly visible. It is a rare survivor of English stone carving at its best and draws strong parallels to the 9th and 10th Centuries."

The lot was originally expected to sell for between £40,000 and £60,000, but a private collector eventually paid £175,000, plus buyer's premium - a total of £201,600.

The stonemason's family said his widow planned to spend money raised from the sale on her grandchildren and a new rocking chair.