Bake Off judge Prue Leith is selling off a rare wall-hanging weaving for thousands of pounds. The 5.5ft long piece of woven art has hung on a bedroom wall of her Cotswolds manor home for 40 years but Prue is now downsizing to a smaller house and has put it up for auction.
It was a Christmas present to her in the late 1970s during her time running a Michelin-starred restaurant in London's Notting Hill. The hanging was made and signed by the pioneering British weaver Peter Collingwood whose work is admired and collected around the world.
After moving to a smaller house in Moreton-in-Marsh, Glocestershire, there simply was not enough wall space to keep it. It will be sold by Sworders Auctioneers of Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, for £5,000.
Prue, 82, said: "I love modern art and have collected many pieces over the years. I particularly like the clean, elegant lines of Collingwood.
"My husband, John Playfair, keeps us on top of the antiques market for many modern British artists. He saw the prices Sworders were getting for Collingwood weavings so that is why we are selling it in Essex."
When she's not busy filming Bake Off, Prue can occasionally be spotted riding around the Cotswolds on the back of her husband's Harley-Davidson motorbike visiting pubs in the area.
Auctioneer John Black said: "Collingwood was almost a forgotten figure at the turn of the 21st century, but prices have risen for his art weavings, as they are rediscovered by a new generation. It's well deserved - he was as important to the British Post-war craft revival as Lucie Rie and Hans Coper - and in the right home, they look fantastic."
Collingwood was at the forefront of weaving for half a century, working out of an old school in Colchester, Essex. He bought it in 1964 and worked there for the rest of his life creating his trademark 'microgauze' hangings of woven linen and steel. He died in 2008. The wall-hanging will be sold on October 25.
