East Sussex junk shop find - rare illustrations of characters from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book sell at auction

The collection of 16 illustrations of subjects from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book was commissioned in 1903 by the London publishers Macmillan from the Detmold twins, Maurice and Edward. They were young prodigies who had been exhibiting at the Royal Academy since the age of 13.

Kat Lister of North Lincolnshire auctioneers Potters said: "Just 500 of the folios were produced and that was for both Britain and America. Many have been broken up in the past 122 years so that the much-admired prints could be framed individually with the result that surviving complete folios are incredibly rare."

Kat added: "We have been asked to auction the folio on behalf of a lady who spotted it in a junk shop in Hastings whilst she was visiting half a century ago.

"We'd love to say that she got it for a song but that was not apparently the case. The price tag - which she hasn't revealed - was a large enough sum of money at the time to make her walk away from the emporium, only to return later when she'd worked out how she could raise the cash!"

A spokesperson revealed that bidding had been ‘fierce’. They said: “The folio went for £2,300 . . . sold to a lady in Cambridge . . . who saw off an American underbidder.”

They added: “The vendor, who found the folio in the Hastings junk shop all those years ago, was delighted. She still hasn't disclosed exactly how much she paid, although she has revealed it was 'more than ten pounds, but less than fifty’.”