Rediscovered Victorian paintings and ethereal moonlit scenes proved popular with bidders at London auctions this week.

A watercolor by Edward Burne-Jones sold at Christie's on Thursday for 14.8 million pounds ($22.3 million), a record-setting price at auction for a Pre-Raphaelite artwork.

From the early 1870s, Love among the Ruins, inspired by a Robert Browning poem, was recently rediscovered. It escalated to nearly three times above its high estimate of 5 million pounds. The scene depicts two lovers in an embrace amongst classical architecture.

The female figure is said to be modeled after Burne-Jones' lover, Maria Zambaco, a Greek beauty with whom he had an affair in the late 1860s.

Christie's total take for the Important Victorian & British Impressionist Art sale was £22,201,975 ($33,547,184), the highest total ever for the category.

At Bonhams on July 10, The Ionian Dance (1895) by Sir Edward John Poynter, rediscovered after almost 100 years hidden away in private collections, went for £301,250 following an intense telephone bidding battle. 

The re-emergence of The Ionian Dance at auction is the first time that the work has been seen for generations, having last appeared on the market in 1915. From the artist’s most successful period, the painting was made one year after Poynter was appointed Director of the National Gallery and one year before he was elected President of the Royal Academy.

Charles O’Brien, Head of Bonhams 19th Century Pictures department commented, “With 80% of lots sold and a sale total of just under £2.8million we were thrilled with the result yesterday."

"Bidding was strong from collectors worldwide and we set several new world record prices including £97,250 for a wonderful fairy painting Scene from a Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Bristol artist John Simmons, £62,450 for a lovely interior scene by Vittorio Bressanin and £85,250 for a large poignant work by the Irish artist William Henry Bartlett,” said O'Brien.

Moonlit scenes proved popular with buyers, too. Other highlights from the sale included an eerie midnight harbour scene, Glasgow Docks (circa 1883) by John Atkinson Grimshaw which sold for £205,250 to a bidder on the telephone. Dock scenes of great ports in Scotland and the north of England became a defining theme throughout Grimshaw’s career. Grimshaw transforms what would have been a dreary rather unsavoury dock into an attractive night scene bathed in moonlight.

Another notable lot was Stanhope Alexander Forbes’ harbour scene showing a sailor heading out to sea by candlelight ominously entitled Out into the Dark and Silence which realised £181,250.

In November 2013, Sotheby's will offer a seminal Pre-Raphaelite image, the haunting "Prosperine" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.