One rainy day in Bedfordshire, England, Peter Richards and his wife noticed a pair of lads shivering under the eaves of their country cottage after getting a soaking.

Inviting them inside to dry off and have some tea, one of the two young men would eventually give Richards a ceramic sculpture of a black and white cat, which looked similar to their pet "Moggy" at the time, as a way of repaying the kindness from that day.

Now, that child-life sculpture has sold for a small fortune, because its maker was none other than Sir David Hockney, the most celebrated English artist of the 20th century.

David Hockney and his friend Norman Stevens from Bradford College of Art were hitchhiking to London to visit exhibitions at the time of the fateful encounter.

Hockney went on to have a long-lasting friendship with the Richards.

The sculpture, which could be Hockney's first ceramic creation, is one of six cats produced by the artist in 1955 while still at art school.

It measures about two dozen inches long and demonstrates his incredible skill with three-dimensional forms.

When the sculpture went up for auction recently, it didn't quite reach the record for a Hockney work of £91 million, but it did eclipse the previous sale record of £100,000 ($121,000) set by a similar Hockney sculpture in June when it was sold for about $134,000

The piece also came with drawings and plans for the piece, along with letters and cards sent to the Richards by the artist over the years.

Hockney has long had a fascination with cats, and they have been a significant motif in some of his major works.

"This was a fantastic result for the vendor who was present in the room and was auctioning the Hockney items to benefit his grandchildren," said Mark Stacey, from Stacey's Auctioneers & Valuers who sold the item.

Peter Richards is in his 90s, said he'd decided now was the right time to sell the ornament to help the younger generations of his family.

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