FRANTIC bidding at a Cotswold auction pushed the price of five rare photographs up to £100,000, over five times their combined estimated value.

Auctioneers were stunned at the high bids made for the Oriental-genre photographs by famed Crimean War photographer Roger Fenton at Dominic Winter's auction in South Cerney this week.

Most of the bidding took place on the phones with international interest from USA and mainland Europe.

Auctioneer Chris Albury said the buyers are photography specialists some of whom may have been bidding on behalf of major institutions.

"I had no idea that these photographs were so rare when I first saw them but it seems likely that there are no more than a handful of each," he said.

Mr Albury only belatedly realised the significance of the photographs which came in for sale as part of a small folder of assorted 19th-century photographs.

"It was only when I spotted an export ban story on one of these that I realised we had a variant of the same photograph, albeit smaller and without Fenton himself in the photograph."

This photograph carried the top estimate of £5,000-8,000 and fetched £32,000."

Roger Fenton was a pioneering war photographer in the Crimea in 1855 but in 1862 he abandoned photography completely, dying almost forgotten seven years later.

Mr Albury added: "The current owner believes his father had them at least fifty years ago and possibly they have been languishing in a damp-stained folder in the attic since Victorian times.

"When I told him the results he sounded close to tears with emotion saying how much difference this was going to make to him and his family."