Andy Warhol Endangered Species prints up for auction

All of the images feature animals that were on the endangered species list, including the black rhinoceros and San Francisco silverspot.

Grevy's zebra and giant panda were given a splash of red.

The works, which also feature a pine barrens tree frog and orangutan, were signed in pencil by Warhol.

The idea for the prints, which also include a bald eagle and African elephant, came from a conversation on ecology between Warhol and his New York agents.

The artist was keen to give endangered animals, including the Siberian tiger and bighorn ram, the same star treatment as his other, more famous, human subjects.

A complete set of Andy Warhol's Endangered Species prints is to be sold at auction in London later this month.

The 10 screenprints, estimated to fetch £250,000 to £300,000 , are part of Sotheby's Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints sale.

Warhol's New York art dealers Frayda and Ronald Feldman suggested he do the prints following a conversation they had about ecology and beach erosion.

Produced in 1983, the artist described his works as "animals in make-up".

Complete sets of Warhol prints are "very rare to the market", Sotheby's said. The last time a complete set was offered at Sotheby's was in New York in November 2012 and it sold for $482,500 (£320,747).

Warhol was a leading exponent of the pop art movement which flourished in the 1960s, with images of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Campbell's soup cans among his most famous works.

He died in 1987 aged 58, after complications following gall bladder surgery.

The sale is on 19 March.