A huge painting of a Lake District landmark will be auctioned later this week.
‘Scafell Crag’, by Julian Cooper, is a giant work of art – 13 feet high and 10 feet wide.
It was commissioned to celebrate mountaineering and the role of the Lake District in the birth of rock climbing and was hung in the entrance atrium of Rheged Discovery Centre near Penrith since the centre’s opening in 2001, and 20 years later was moved to Grasmere.
Since then, it has been on display filling an entire wall in Mathilde’s cafe alongside the Heaton Cooper Studio and Gallery, run by Julian’s family.
It’s now been moved to the Mitchells salesroom in Cockermouth to be auctioned on November 27 with an opening price of £6,000, though the estimate is that it will reach between £10,000 and £15,000.
It is being sold by the Mountain Heritage Trust (MHT), who commissioned the painting, to realise assets.
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A spokesman for the MHT said: "We’re excited by the forthcoming sale of Julian Cooper's wonderful Scafell Crag, which many may remember from hanging at Rheged during the time of the National Mountaineering Exhibition.
“With the painting finding a new owner, the MHT will be able to further their important aims of preserving, conserving and cataloguing their outstanding collections of archives and objects related to British mountaineering and climbing that are held at its HQ in Threlkeld."
Julian Cooper hopes that a buyer can be found and said: "I know it's a very big painting, but it would be a tragedy if it disappeared from view because no one has a wall big enough.”
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