A rare wooden chair bought in a junk shop in England for £5 has sold at auction for over £16,000.

The checkerboard design turned out to be an "important example" of Vienna Secession furniture designed by Koloman Moser, an Austrian artist who was a considerable influence on 20th-century graphic art before he died in 1918.

The elm and wicker highback chair, was sold in Brighton to a woman who contacted an appraiser and was stunned to discover its century-old roots in the avant-garde art school in Vienna, Austria.

Sworders auction house called it a modern reinterpretation of a traditional 18th century ladder-back chair designed in 1902.

Moser, who taught at the Vienna School of Applied Arts, also designed a wide array of graphic works, from postage stamps to magazine vignettes, fashion, stained glass windows, porcelains and ceramics, blown glass, tableware, silver, and jewelry, as well as furniture.

John Black, in charge of the auction sale, said, "We are particularly pleased to know that it will be going back to Austria."

In fact, they were so thrilled with the sale, they broke their no-alcohol January pledge.

"We were not drinking in January but made an exception on Tuesday evening, it was an evening to celebrate."

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