AN iconic painting by the founder of Colchester Art Society has sold for a record £160,000 at auction.

Foxgloves by Sir Cedric Morris’ went under the hammer at Sworders’ and was sold to a leading London dealer.

It had been expected to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000.

It is the highest amount paid for a Morris painting beating the £140,000 paid for his Flowers and Butterflies in January this year.

Part of the money raised, along with the sale of a number of other paintings, will go towards preserving his 16th century home which gave rise to the influential East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing.

Considered the quintessential Morris still life, the piece depicts pink and purple foxgloves as well as other English garden flowers.

The vendor of the painting came to own it as her father and grandfather knew Morris and stayed at Benton End in Suffolk.

The picture has been in her family since the early Sixties.

The anonymous seller said: “Growing up, it was just one unframed painting among many hung on various walls. The name Cedric Morris meant little to us. After my grandfather died in 1989, the painting came to me and my brother.

“Though it’s a small and beautiful part of our family history, we now feel it’s time to pass it on to others who can also take pleasure in it.”

Morris and his lifelong partner Arthur Lett-Haines originally founded the avant-garde East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at their home in Dedham before moving it to Benton End House.

Over the decades it was open the art school helped train dozens of artists including early students Lucien Freud and Maggi Hambling.

Morris and Lett-Haines founded Colchester Art Society in 1946 with Morris serving as its president from 1979 until his death in 1982.

The art dealer who purchased Foxgloves also paid out £28,000 for a further two paintings by Morris.