HM Bateman cartoon sold for £2 at car boot sale fetches £1,100 at auction

A cartoon bought for £2 at a car boot sale has sold for £1,100 at auction.

The hand-drawn satirical work by celebrated cartoonist HM Bateman fetched the four-figure sum two years after being picked up for a bargain, auctioneer John Nicholson's said.

The work, The Larynx Preservation Committee Fail To Detect The Slightest Suggestion Of Throat Trouble, In A Man Who Has Chain-Smoked One Thousand Cigarettes, exceeded its estimate of between £500 and £800 when it was bought by an overseas buyer.

The firm said the unnamed female former owner broke its frame in a house move shortly after buying the six-and-three-quarter by eight-and-three-quarter-inch work in London and left it under a bed before deciding to sell it this year.

John Nicholson's specialist Buffy Parker said: "It was a happy ending for buyer and seller and once again illustrated not just the resurging popularity of Bateman, but also the enduring appeal of satire on the English character."

The black and white artwork shows a quintet of experts examining a man under a ceiling lamp while a large bucket of cigarette ends and strewn cigarette packets litter the floor.

Bateman was born in 1887 and died in 1970.