Lost Original Jungle Book Illustrations come to Auction
Two original watercolour illustrations for Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, long thought lost, have been rediscovered and will be offered in Roseberys' Old Master, British & European Pictures auction on Tuesday 10 March with estimates of £15,000-20,000 each.
The drawings, which depict scenes from The Jungle Book, had been hanging unrecognised on the walls of a London family home for decades. Extraordinarily rare, they increase the number of known surviving originals from a set of 16 to just six.
The revelation has astounded the owners of the two watercolours: “These drawings were never treated as ‘important’ works in our family - they were simply part of our home,” they explained. “Finding out that they restore a missing piece of the visual history of Kipling’s The Jungle Book, has been completely unexpected.”
The watercolours were created in 1902/3 for Sixteen Illustrations of Subjects from Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’, a deluxe portfolio commissioned by Macmillan & Co in 1903.
Lara L’vov-Basirov, Head of Old Master, British & European Pictures at Roseberys, described being able to bid on the two original watercolours as a “vanishingly rare opportunity”.
Reportedly limited to 500 copies, the 1903 portfolio was published separately from the book itself, which had first appeared in 1894. The original edition collected stories Kipling had published in magazines in 1893-4, and included illustrations by the author’s father amongst 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 contained the 16 plates and a frontispiece illustrated by the Detmold twins.
Because the plates were often removed and framed individually, complete 1903 portfolios are now extremely rare. Among other institutions, a copy is held by the Library of Congress.
Rarer still are the original watercolours produced for the project. Before this discovery, only four were known to survive, now split between private collections, the Natural History Museum and the National Trust. One of them, The Return of the Buffalo Herd, is on display at Bateman’s in East Sussex, Kipling’s former home (National Trust).
Both 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 newly rediscovered works were produced by the twin artistic prodigies Edward Detmold (1883-1957) and Charles Maurice Detmold (1883-1908), known as Maurice, and were published when they were just 20. It proved to be their final joint venture, as Maurice tragically took his own life aged 25.
The first of the two watercolours depicts Mowgli and Bagheera and is by Edward Detmold, signed ‘EJD’. It shows the young protagonist alongside the black panther Bagheera, rendered with fine linear detail and controlled washes.
Lot 373: Charles Maurice Detmold, British 1883-1908 - 'The Cold Lairs': original illustration for Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
Estimate: £15,000 - £20,000
The second, The Cold Lairs, is by Maurice Detmold and signed ‘M DETMOLD’. It depicts the ruined city of the Bandar-log, the monkey people, combining intricate jungle foliage with animated animal forms that reflect the brothers’ close observation of the natural world.
The precocious Detmolds won the commission aged just 18, having already exhibited at the Royal Academy aged 13. Their interpretation helped shape the public image of Kipling’s characters and settings until Disney’s 1967 animation created a new visual tradition.
Rudyard Kipling was the first English language author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, awarded in 1907 when he was 41, a record that still stands.