Beatrix Potter Rabbit

This watercolour of an anonymous rabbit by Beatrix Potter fetched £15,600 at Bonhams' auction in London today, reaching the top estimate. It's peanuts compared with the millions paid for Big Names in art, but it looks as though collectors are beginning to shy away from trash at inflated prices and are snapping up quality illustrations at relatively cheap cost. I was lucky enough to view a Potter dormouse (a realistic nature painting) at the RA Summer Exhibition many years ago, and it wowed me. Artists such as Beatrix Potter and E.H. Shepard were far superior talents to fashionable hacks like Picasso and Rothko. The big question is: Will this little gem stay in the UK, where it belongs?