LONDON.- Tall bottle vase with disc, a rare and important piece by the Austrian-born British ceramicist Hans Coper, set a new world auction record for the artist when it sold for £655,500 at Bonhams Design sale in London on 4 October. Made circa 1968, the work had been estimated at £80,000-120,000.

Marcus McDonald, Bonhams Director of 20th Century Design said: “Coper is one of the great names of 20th British ceramics. This very rare vase was a true masterpiece, and I am not surprised that there was such keen bidding in the room, on the phones and over the internet with the exciting outcome of a new world auction record for a work by Coper.”

Other highlights included:

• Important and rare adjustable table lamp, model no. M 284, 1904 by Joseph Hoffmann. Executed by the Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna, Austria. The lamp was produced a year after the Wiener Werkstätte was founded, in 1903, and has an extreme form of simplicity and pure elementary forms. It had been in the same family’s ownership since 1910. Sold for £53,220 (estimate: £20,000-30,000).

• Untitled pot, 1983 by Magdalene Odundo. Sold for £35,580 (estimate: £20,000-30,000).

• Table with Bird's Legs by Méret Oppenheim designed 1939, produced 1983. Sold for £28,020 (estimate: £15,000-20,000).