WELSH CERAMICIST'S BIRD WATERCOLOURS TO SELL AT AUCTION

A collection of original watercolours by William Weston Young, a Welsh ceramicist who died in 1847, will be sold at auction in Cardiff on 27 July. The album comprises 41 sketches bound in one volume and is expected to fetch up to £25,000. Rogers Jones Auctioneers is handling the sale. The works are Young's original working drawings created for his celebrated porcelain designs.

Young was a significant figure in Welsh ceramics history, holding positions as draughtsman at the Cambrian Pottery and later rescuing the Nantgarw Pottery. He lived in the Neath Valley and specialised in depicting Welsh nature through scientifically accurate representations of birds and botanical specimens painted onto clay. Young was also an accomplished artist, inventor and entrepreneur, and is credited as the accidental inventor of the modern blast-furnace brick. According to the auctioneer, his work now appears in major museum collections.

Ben Rogers Jones, the auctioneer, stated that Young's name carries "real weight" among collectors of Welsh ceramics and that his original watercolours "rarely appear on the market". The rarity of the collection, combined with Young's standing in ceramic history and the appeal of its natural-history subject matter, makes the album particularly desirable to collectors, Rogers Jones said.