A SET of Islamic murals, one of only four copies known to exist, was sold at an auction in Mere on Saturday for £500,000.

The figure is understood to be a record for a provincial auction, breaking the previous record of £460,000.

The murals, in four panels, are a previously unrecorded copy of the Negarestan murals.

Unlike the other three copies, these are inscribed.

They depict a gathering of the court of Fath Ali Shah, in Persia, and were discovered at a south coast property.

They were offered for sale by fine art consultants, auctioneers and valuers Finan & Co, of the Square, in Mere.

The auction was held at the town's Old Ship Hotel and the murals were the last of the 70 lots.

Antique dealers, private collectors and vendors watched in amazement as the bidding, conducted entirely by telephone, went up and up.

Auctioneer Ian Walker, senior partner of Tamlyn & Son of Bridgwater, started the bidding at £34,000 and five telephone lines were involved.

Three dropped out, leaving two to battle it out.

Finan & Co's Robert Finan said he was unable to give any details of the buyer, or the country for which the murals were destined.

The original murals, since destroyed, were executed by a team of artists under Abdallah Khan, in the Negarestan Palace, Tehran, during 1812-13.

They depicted an imaginary gathering of Fath Ali Shah's court, with attendant foreign envoys.

One of the panels shows Fath Ali Shah on his throne and attended by 12 of his sons.

Another shows six slaves and the other two show rows of courtiers and visiting envoys, including representatives of Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, Sind and Arabia.

The Finan & Co auction featured a number of other important historical works of art.

An ivory fan, encrusted with diamonds and believed to have been a gift to the woman who became Empress Eugnie on her marriage to Napoleon III of France, sold for £41,000.

It had belonged to a collector from Mere, as did a Faberg gold, enamel and ivory baton, reputed to have been a gift from Tsar Nicholas II to the conductor of the Bolshoi Ballet.

The baton fetched £16,000.

A Dutch 18th Century walnut marquetry bureau cabinet made £16,800, a Maori whalebone hand club £4,150, a Kalabari-Ijo wooden dance headdress £5,000, and an Ngoni neckrest £7,000.

The naval general service medal awarded to John Maddock, following the last significant naval engagement of the Napoleonic wars, went for £7,600.

Four designs for the theatre, by Rex Whistler, made a total of £2,275.