ART

An Animated Auction: Animation artwork posted slight gains at an auction in Burbank Sunday night, suggesting that the market for mid-price works is beginning to rise after more than a year of stable prices. Of the 370 lots of drawings, cels, backgrounds and preliminary sketches offered by dealer Howard Lowery, 348 found buyers for a sale total of $1,036,500, the first time a West Coast animation art sale has topped $1 million. A cel-and-background set-up of Peter Pan, Wendy, John and Michael from Walt Disney’s “Peter Pan” (1953) brought $62,000, well over its pre-sale estimate of $35,000-$50,000; a preliminary painting by Eyvind Earle for Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” (1959) sold for $29,000, nearly three times its estimate of $5,000-$10,000.