The Fair, a painting by Alfred Lord Munnings, has sold for £182,500 ($302,347) at Bonhams London.

It was the headline lot of the 19th Century European, Victorian and British Impressionist Art sale, which took place on January 22 - and was originally bought for just £35 in 1916.

Munnings' work shows a scene from a rural horse fair

Munnings (1878-1959) worked as a horse painter, often taking on commissions from wealthy landowners throughout Britain. He is often associated with the Newlyn School, of which he was a distinguished member.

In 1944 he was elected the head of the Royal Academy of Art, whereupon he gave an ill-advised, drunken speech on the radio attacking modernism. In it he claimed Churchill had once asked him: "Alfred, if you met Picasso coming down the street would you join with me in kicking his.. something something?"

He claimed to have responded with an emphatic: "Yes Sir, I would".

His work remains popular to this day, with the 2007 sale of The Red Prince Mare at Sotheby's setting his auction record at $7.8m.

A work by Alfred Von Wiersusz-Kowalski (1849-1915), titled The Mountain Patrol, made £98,500 ($163,184).

Kowalski was a popular painter of his era, based in Munich, where he worked alongside another Polish artist named Josef Brandt - who also specialised in historic scenes.

The auction record for his work was set at $697,301 for Horse-Drawn Sleigh in the Snow Threatened by Wolves - which sold at Gallerie Koller in Zurich in 2008.

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