Lot 373 & 374: Original illustrations for Kipling's The Jungle Book by Charles and Maurice Detmold

Two original watercolour illustrations for The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, long thought lost, sold today at Roseberys London for a combined total of £130,480.

International bidders competed fiercely online and over the telephones throughout the sale.

Lot 373: Charles Maurice Detmold, British 1883-1908 - 'The Cold Lairs': original illustration for Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
Price realised: £36,640

The first work by Charles Maurice Detmold, depicting the Bandar-log or “monkey people”, saw intense bidding both online and on the telephone. One phone bidder hesitated at £26,000 before returning with a final bid of £27,000. The lot eventually sold online to a UK buyer for £36,640.

Lot 374: Edward Julius Detmold, British 1883-1957 - 'Mowgli and Bagheera': original illustration for Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
Price realised: £93,840

The second illustration by Edward Julius Detmold, depicting Mowgli with the black panther Bagheera, soared past its £15,000–£20,000 estimate. Four bidders online and on the telephones pursued the work before it finally sold to a phone bidder for £93,840.

Lara L’vov-Basirov

Associate Director | Specialist | Head of Old Master, British & European Pictures Department

“The level of bidding reflects just how rarely works of this importance appear on the market. 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 are extraordinarily rare. Their emergence increases the number of known surviving originals from the original set of sixteen illustrations to just seven.

The drawings, which depict scenes from The Jungle Book, had hung unrecognised on the walls of a London family home for decades. The revelation astonished the former owners.

“We are absolutely delighted with these results. 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.

Reportedly 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 sixteen 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 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 tragically took his own life at the age of twenty-five.

The first illustration, by Edward Detmold and signed ‘EJD’, depicts Mowgli alongside the black panther Bagheera, rendered with fine linear detail and controlled washes.

The second, The Cold Lairs, is by Maurice Detmold and signed ‘M DETMOLD’. It shows the ruined city of the Bandar-log, combining intricate jungle foliage with animated animal forms that reflect the brothers’ close observation of the natural world.

The precocious Detmold twins had won the commission aged just eighteen, having already exhibited at the Royal Academy at only thirteen.

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.

Kipling himself became the first English-language author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, aged forty-one.