Two lost masterpieces by Aubrey Beardsley have been sold for £200,000 after being found hanging in a man’s toilet.

The pen and ink drawings were undiscovered for 80 years before being spotted by an auctioneer carrying out a routine valuation at the pensioner’s bungalow.

The drawings make up a highly valuable collection of 13 illustrations drawn for the Oscar Wilde play Salome in 1894.

The unnamed man inherited them from his grandfather, a university professor, 40 years ago. The drawings were sold at auction in America to a British buyer for a total of £201,240.

Beardsley was a controversial Victorian artist from Brighton, renowned for his erotic drawings.

The two works are entitled The Climax and A Platonic Lament. The Climax fetched £120,240 and A Platonic Lament £81,000.

Beardsley was born in Buckingham Road, Brighton, on August 21, 1872, and died of TB in France in 1898. He studied at Brighton Grammar School - now BHASVIC - from 1884 to 1888 and in 1889 was sent to London to become a clerk in an insurance office.

He launched his artistic career after meeting painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones and, later, Oscar Wilde.

Beardsley was a prodigy from an early age. He could read and play Chopin before he was five.

When he was ten, he earned £30 in six weeks by sketching little figures on menus and guest cards for a fashionable wedding. He progressed to illustrate Mallory’s Morte D’Arthur.

Rumours flew that his links with Wilde, who called him a brilliant and wonderful artist, were not purely platonic.

It is thought the recent discoveries were a gift to the vendor’s grandfather, a great art lover, in the 1930s.

Auctioneer Stuart Whitehurst was asked to value items the man was selling when he had a “hairs on the back of the neck” moment.

He said: “The man had inherited an awful lot of things from his grandfather but recently decided to downsize. The property was very small with 1970s decor and had things stuffed under the bed, in the attic and piled up in the living room.

“I found lots of nice pieces that would sell at auction and then I asked to use the toilet before I left. It had two small framed pictures on the wall. I instantly recognised them as they are very iconic but assumed they were just prints.

“I suddenly thought ‘Oh my gosh they are drawings’. I just knew they were the originals that have been missing for the last 80 years. It really was an incredible moment.

The 9in x 6in drawings were found in Boston, America.