Unseen Beatrix Potter watercolour fetches £289,500 at auction

The first in the series - showing five rabbits arriving swathed in overcoats against the cold - fetched £121, 250.

It had been given to Potter's aunt Lucy, wife of Sir Henry Roscoe. The third, showing guests dancing to a pipe-playing rabbit, went for £22, 500.

Another watercolour - "Three Rabbits Eating Plenty of Buns" - went for £42, 050 and a fifth, an abandoned picture for The Tale of Peter Rabbit, made £32, 450.

The watercolours were the highlights of an archive of illustrations, Christmas cards and letters which fetched a total of £748, 200.

It originated from the collection of Potter's brother Bertram, who encouraged his sister's early efforts to sell her artwork.

Potter executed the previously unseen watercolours more than nine years before she paid to have 250 copies printed of her classic, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, in December 1901 after rejections from at least six publishers.

She gave many of them away to friends - and sold the rest for 1s 2d (less than 6p), although they are now worth around £30, 000.

Potter invented the character Peter Rabbit in an illustrated letter to her ex-governess's child in 1893.

Helen Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943) was an English author and illustrator, mycologist and conservationist, best known for her children's books, which featured animal characters such as Peter Rabbit.

In her thirties Potter published the highly successful children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and became secretly engaged to her publisher Norman Warne causing a breach with her parents, who disapproved of his social status. Warne died before the wedding could take place.

Potter eventually published 23 children's books, and having become financially independent of her parents, was able to buy a farm in the Lake District, which she extended with other purchases over time. In her forties she married a local solicitor, William Heelis. She became a sheep breeder and farmer while continuing to write and illustrate children's books. Potter died in 1943, and left almost all of her property to The National Trust in order to preserve the beauty of the Lake District as she had known it, protecting it from developers.

Potter's books continue to sell well throughout the world, in multiple languages. Her stories have been retold in various formats, including a ballet, films and in animation.