Original watercolours by William Weston Young expected to fetch up to £25,000 at auction

Image source, Rogers Jones Auctioneers/PA Wire
Image caption,

Young lived in the Neath Valley and painted Welsh nature, depicting scientifically accurate birds and botanical specimens on to clay
Image source, Rogers Jones Auctioneers/PA Wire
Image caption,

He was one of the defining figures in Welsh ceramics and was best known for his work at the Cambrian Pottery and Nantgarw China Works
Image source, Rogers Jones Auctioneers/PA Wire
Image caption,

Young, was an accomplished artist, inventor and entrepreneur and the accidental inventor of the modern blast-furnace brick, and died in 1847
Image source, Rogers Jones Auctioneers/PA Wire
Image caption,

Rogers Jones Auctioneers are selling Young's original working drawings for his celebrated porcelain
Image source, Rogers Jones Auctioneers/PA Wire
Image caption,

Auctioneer Ben Rogers Jones says Young's name carries "real weight" among collectors of Welsh ceramics, but his original watercolours "rarely appear on the market"
Image source, Rogers Jones Auctioneers/PA Wire
Image caption,

The album of original bird watercolours are expected to fetch up to £25,000
Image source, Rogers Jones Auctioneers/PA Wire
Image caption,

The collection will be sold on 27 July in Cardiff

Slide 1 of 7, A watercolor painting of a large bird on a tree branch., Young lived in the Neath Valley and painted Welsh nature, depicting scientifically accurate birds and botanical specimens on to clay

Danielle Herbert

BBC Wales

7 hours ago

A series of watercolours by ceramicist William Weston Young are to go under the hammer at auction.

An album of original bird watercolours by Young are expected to fetch up to £25,000.

Young, who died in 1847, was one of the defining figures in Welsh ceramics and was best known for his work at the Cambrian Pottery and Nantgarw China Works.

He was an accomplished artist, inventor and entrepreneur and the accidental inventor of the modern blast-furnace brick.

Young lived in the Neath Valley and painted Welsh nature, depicting scientifically accurate birds and botanical specimens onto clay.

Rogers Jones Auctioneers are selling Young's original working drawings for his celebrated porcelain.

They are preserved within one bound volume of 41 sketches.

The front cover of William Weston Young's book 'British Birds'. — Image caption,

An album of original bird watercolours by William Weston Young are to go under the hammer at auction

Auctioneer Ben Rogers Jones said Young's name carries "real weight" among collectors of Welsh ceramics, but his original watercolours "rarely appear on the market".

He said: "As the draughtsman at the Cambrian Pottery, and the man who later rescued the Nantgarw Pottery, his hand lies behind objects now held in major museum collections.

"That combination of true rarity, his standing in Welsh ceramic history, and an appealing natural-history subject makes the album especially desirable for collectors.

"It's certainly one to watch in the sale."

The collection will be sold on 27 July in Cardiff.