KEEN bidders bagged themselves a piece of art history as four works by master forger Shaun Greenhalgh went under the hammer yesterday.

Each of the four LS Lowry-style oil painting created this year by Mr Greenhalgh had an estimated sale price of between £3,000 and £5,000 at Bolton Auction Rooms in Breightmet.

Keen bidding amongst fans of the talented artist's work pushed the price of A Union Rally to £4,800, near the top of its estimate.

It was snapped up by a keen internet bidder as was another work, Aniline Brook Mill.

It proved to be less popular though, failing to reach the lower end of its estimate, eventually going for £2,700.

Two works were purchased by people in the room at the Breightmet Drive saleroom.

A buyer was keen to own Going to School and paid £3,700 for the work while the gavel went down on Going to the Match when the price reached £4,600.

Auction house manager Harry Howcroft said: "We had people bidding from all over the world. There were people on the phone, the internet and the auction room was full. It was buzzing - Shaun Greenhalgh's artwork always attracts a lot of interest."

Mr Greenhalgh earned notoriety after he was revealed as an expert forger, producing works which fooled the art world, from a shed at the back of his parents' Bromley Cross home.

Among his forgeries was the Amarna Princess, a statuette purporting to be 3,000 years old from Ancient Egypt which was sold to Bolton Council for more than £400,000 in 2003.

A plaster prototype of the Amarna Princess, signed by Mr Greenhalgh, was also up for auction yesterday, with an estimate of £200 to £300, but did not sell.

Mr Greenhalgh was arrested in 2006 and sentenced to four years and eight months in prison.

These days he is using his amazing talent legitimately, with his art works, clearly identified as being by him, sought after by collectors from the UK and abroad.

A private man, Mr Greenhalgh sells his work through an intermediary and has placed several lots with Bolton Auction Rooms over the years.

The four works sold this week are believed to be the last batch of Lowry-style paintings he will be producing and netted him a total of £15,800.

The oil on canvas paintings were signed LS Lowry, but also featured Mr Greenhalgh's symbol and 2017, the date they were painted. Originals of the works by LS Lowry were all painted in the 1920s and are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Mr Greenhalgh's memoir, A Forger's Tale: Confessions of the Bolton Forger, was released this year and ended up being a bestseller.

He has also appeared on BBC's Fake or Fortune TV Show.