It was a wedding present lovingly created for a close friend and hidden away from the world for decades.

But now the lost work of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, one of the foremost artists of the Victorian period, has emerged after it was brought forward by the great-great-grandson of the man for whom it was made.

The painting is a portrait of the etcher Leopold Löwenstam, a friend and colleague of the great artist.

It was gifted to Löwenstam and his wife, Alice Search, who was the nanny of Sir Lawrence's daughters, on their wedding day in 1883.