A museum and leading dealers in early 20th century decorative arts provided the competition well above the £3500 top estimate.
The block-printed silk robe, consigned from the north of England, is among the small group of daring textiles designed c.1912-14 by the Vorticist artist Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957). Only one other is known.
It is possible the fabric, with its bold colours and bands of stylised foxes, swans, fish and kneeling figures, was among the textiles produced by the Bloomsbury Group’s Omega Workshops.
However, a similar printed panel of this design, which sold for £8200 by Lyon & Turnbull as part of the Paul Reeve collection in February, was attributed to the Rebel Art Centre – the short-lived workshop set up in 1914 after Lewis and several Omega artists had quarrelled with the Bloomsbury set.
