PAINTINGS by Bolton’s royal artist, Reuben Ward Binks, have sold for more than £7,000 at auction.

The eight watercolours — all of dogs which were Binks’ specialty — were sold at Bonhams in New York.

They were part of a special £1 million dog artwork sale, featuring more than 200 works of art, at the renowned auction house.

Three Binks’ pictures of Setters — sold together in one lot — fetched £4,022.

Sam Travers, an art expert at Bonhams, said: “Reuben Ward Binks’s profile portraits are among his most memorable works.

“This is demonstrated by the head portraits of Setters in this latest auction. They show just why he has become one of the most collected canine artists in recent years.”

Born in Bolton in 1880, Binks lived in Ralph Street in Halliwell.

After leaving Manchester Grammar School, Binks, the eldest of six children, started his working life as an apprentice watchmaker before becoming an optician.

Painting, which he started as a schoolboy, was his first love however and he once said: “I was always a natural dog lover, so I leaned toward and graduated into dogs.”

The royal family commissioned him to paint pictures of their pets.

He painted King Edward VII’s terrier, Caesar, and Queen Alexandra’s pomeranians and basset hounds.

Binks later painted Clumber spaniels for King George V, Cairn terriers for King Edward VIII, retrievers for King George VI, terriers for the Duke of Gloucester and alsatians for the Duke of Kent.

The Queen owns 15 paintings by Binks, 11 of which are in her private apartments at Sandringham. They include a 1929 watercolour of King George V shooting woodcock.

The current world auction record for a Binks work is £9,612, sold at Sotheby’s in New York on June 5, 1992. It was for a 1914 oil painting, Five Bulldogs On A Beach.

The majority of the Binks paintings in the New York sale were from one collector in Sweden.