Two rare original watercolor illustrations for Rudyard Kipling’s 1903 edition of The Jungle Book were rediscovered in a London family home and sold at Roseberys auction house for a combined £130,480 ($174,940). Created by twin brothers Edward Julius and Charles Maurice Detmold, the works—titled Mowgli and Bagheera and The Cold Lairs—had been hanging unassumingly for decades. The sale price significantly exceeded expectations, with the Mowgli illustration alone fetching more than four times its high estimate.
The discovery is historically significant because only six of the original 16 commissioned illustrations for the Macmillan & Co. portfolio are known to survive. The Detmold brothers were teenage prodigies whose intricate depictions of the natural world defined the visual identity of Kipling’s stories for generations. This sale highlights the enduring market value of high-quality golden age book illustrations and restores a missing chapter to the provenance of one of the 20th century's most famous literary collaborations.