Lost Original The Jungle Book Illustrations Sold for £130,000 at Roseberys

Two original watercolour illustrations for The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling which were long thought lost have been sold at Roseberys for a total of £130,480. 

The first work by Charles Maurice Detmold depicting the Bandar-log or “monkey people”, eventually sold online to a UK buyer for £36,640. The second illustration by Edward Julius Detmold showing Mowgli with the black panther Bagheera finally sold to a phone bidder for £93,840.

“The level of bidding reflects just how rarely works of this importance appear on the market," said Lara L’vov-Basirov, Head of Old Master, British & European Pictures at Roseberys. "To offer two of the seven known surviving original watercolours from the Jungle Book series was exceptional, and collectors immediately recognised their significance both as works of art and as part of the visual history of Kipling’s most famous book."

The two watercolours had hung unrecognised on the walls of a London family home for decades and are extraordinarily rare. Their emergence increases the number of known surviving originals from the original set of sixteen illustrations to just seven.

“We’ve cherished these works in our family home for decades and we hope that the next custodians enjoy them as much as we have,” said the anonymous seller. 

The watercolours were created in 1902–03 for Sixteen Illustrations of Subjects from Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’, a deluxe portfolio commissioned by Macmillan & Co and published in 1903. Limited to 500 copies, the portfolio was issued separately from the book itself which had first appeared in 1894. The original volume collected stories Kipling had previously published in magazines between 1893 and 1894 and included illustrations by the author’s father among other artists.

In 1908, the first standard printed edition of The Jungle Book incorporating the Detmold illustrations within the book format was published by Macmillan. This edition included 16 plates and a frontispiece by the Detmold twins. Because the plates were frequently removed and framed individually, complete 1903 portfolios are now extremely rare. Among other institutions, an example is held by the Library of Congress.

Rarer still are the original watercolours created for the project. Before this discovery, only four were known to survive. Since the Roseberys original auction announcement, a further original watercolour has come to light at Bateman's, East Sussex. This brings the total of known original watercolours to seven, two of which are now in the Collection of the National Trust. 

Both newly rediscovered works were exhibited in 1903 at the Dutch Gallery, London in An Exhibition of Water-Colour Drawings. Illustrations to Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book”, etc. By Maurice and Edward Detmold. The two watercolours were produced by the twin artistic prodigies Edward Detmold (1883–1957) and Charles Maurice Detmold (1883–1908). Published when the brothers were just twenty years old, the project proved to be their final joint venture, as Maurice took his own life at the age of 25. Their interpretation helped shape the public image of Kipling’s characters and settings for decades, until Disney’s 1967 animated adaptation created a new visual tradition.