A PICASSO ink drawing failed to reach its reserve price at a Crewkerne auction on Friday.

The artwork, called Personnages et Deux Chiens, was expected to reach between £30,000 and £40,000 but no bids were indicated when Lawrences auctioneer Richard Kay suggested bidding should begin at £26,000.

Mr Kay said: "It was disappointing the way it went. The overall picture sale went extremely well, with 85 per cent of the items going.

"These are strange times. Certain items in the sale were bought at auction less than a year ago and went for three times the price than before."

The auctioneers are now going to try and market the Picasso to private buyers and it is unlikely to be re-auctioned again in Crewkerne.

Despite the outcome, there was a lot of interest in the Picasso with many people leaving the room after it failed to sell.

One of those was Lucy Atherton of Crewkerne, who said: "I was just interested to come along and see if anyone in the room was going to bid."

The drawing, created between 1900 and 1901, depicts two groups of figures with a couple of dogs.

It was drawn by Picasso when he was a teenager living in Madrid and comes from a sketchbook known as Carnet 96.

It seems as though the drawing demonstrates his admiration for the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, whose pictures he would have seen during his stay in Paris from October to December 1900.

It is not signed but stamped on the back to show it was once in the collection of Picasso's granddaughter Marina.

The drawing has been exhibited in Geneva, Venice, Munich, Tokyo, Melbourne and Paris. It is from a private West Country collection.