Cash in the Attic

News today that a routine valuation at a pensioner's bungalow turned up two fantastic long-lost Aubrey Beardsley illustrations in the downstairs loo - which have now been sold for £200,000 - gives me mixed emotions.

Read the story in The Telegraph

The discovery is great news for the art world. Beardsley was a magnificently decadent artist, a camp and delicate eccentric who mixed in aesthete circles with the likes of Oscar Wilde and Whistler, and quite rightly has claim to be one of the greatest influences on art and fashion to this day, despite the fact he died at the age of 26. Some of his most infamous drawings, inspired by Japanese art, featured enormous cocks, and were based on themes of history and mythology, including his illustrations for Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Wilde's Salomé.

But I can't help thinking - why can't something like this amazing discovery happen to me? I always think that way whenever I watch the Antiques Roadshow and some ghastly pot that an old biddy keeps her teeth in turns out to be a priceless Ming dynasty ceremonial vase, or some oik finds a valuable ivory Netsuke at a jumble sale...

Why didn't I have a mad old Auntie with a rambling house and treasure in the attic? Why is it that every jumble sale I go to, the nearest thing I get to "valuables" is a collection of albums by Nana Mouskouri or some chipped Wade Whimsies?

Ho hum...