ONE of the most famous images of Winnie the Pooh has sold for 314,500 British pounds (US$493,255) at auction, three times its estimate.

    EH Shepard’s ink drawing of the bear playing Poohsticks with Piglet and Christopher Robin was published in 1928.

    The illustration, which featured in AA Milne’s second book, “The House at Pooh Corner,” had been in a private collection since the 1970s.

    The London auction also featured items from history, English literature and illustrations.

    The famed drawing, publicity is set in chapter six of the second Milne book, which was called “In Which Pooh Invents a New Game and Eeyore Joins In.”

    It was one of several Shepard illustrations up for auction.

    A pencil drawing of the same scene sold at Sotheby’s last year for 58,750 pounds.

    Shepard and AA Milne worked together on four books — “Winnie-the-Pooh” (1926), “The House at Pooh Corner “(1928), a poem about the bear in verse book “When We Were Very Young” (1924), and “Now We Are Six” (1927).

    Shepard was made an OBE in 1972 in recognition of his illustrations and died March 24, 1976, aged 96.

    (SD-Agencies)