Collector spends £95,000 on work by unknown artist (Harris, Rolf)

At the Harrods art sale yesterday, Andy Warhol's iconic Marilyn Monroe silkscreen prints were on sale for £55,000, while a limited edition Picasso etching had a £16,250 tag.

But one collector decided to take a punt on a less celebrated artist - an Australian painter based in Britain called Rolf Harris. She was prepared to pay £95,000 to own his Impressionistic Flower Seller at the Elephant and Castle.

What clinched the deal was that the buyer - who remains anonymous - had not the faintest idea who Harris was and had clearly not been influenced by the joys of his chart-topping epic "Two Little Boys", his playing of the wobble board or his hyperactive television appearances in programmes such as Animal Hospital.

Russell Green, managing director of the Halcyon Gallery, which is staging a £25m art sale at Harrods, said that Harris was an artist long before he came to fame and that it was a rather good painting, which justified the price - the highest paid for the artist.

"This is a woman who collects beautiful art and knows a good painting when she sees it. She had never heard of him before,'' Mr Green said.

For Harris, born in Perth in 1930, the sale is another step on the road towards rehabilitation from naff television personality to post-modern cool.

It is also likely to push up the value of his paintings, because, as Mr Green says, he's in his seventies and doesn't paint that much any more.

So anyone wishing to snap up more of Harris's works should get down to Harrods soon.