PAINTINGS by a celebrated Victorian portrait painter have been uncovered more than a century after his death.

Three pictures by Clement Burlison, who was born in Middleton in Teesdale, will be auctioned in Newcastle next month. The works were virtually unknown until their owners took them in for experts at auctioneers Anderson and Garland to examine.

The paintings, all depicting Continental women, have been described as some of Burlison's finest.

Anderson and Garland's picture specialist, John Anderson, said: "One of the paintings is of an Italian girl, the same subject as another of Clement's paintings in the Burlison Gallery, which forms part of the Old Town Hall in Durham.

"Interestingly, this virtually unknown gallery was opened exactly a century ago this year, and it's a happy coincidence that these three paintings should have been brought in for sale, and from two totally unrelated sources, at this time."

Burlison often visited the Continent to study Old Masters, and experts believe it was during one of his trips abroad that he painted the three portraits.

One of the paintings is thought to be the original sketch he made of his celebrated painting Portrait of an Italian Girl, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1846.

When Burlison died in 1899, he bequeathed his entire collection of paintings to the City of Durham on the condition that the local authority provided a public gallery for people to view his works.

The gallery's first home was in Saddler Street, and was officially opened on June 1, 1902, by the Earl of Durham.

The local council leased the premises until the Twenties, but the collection was then transferred to the town hall when the lease expired.

In 1995, Burlison's painting entitled The 12th of August on Wellhope Moors, Durham, picturing a family relaxing during a break in their shoot, sold for £30,000.

The latest sale may revive interest in the artist who was born at Middleton in Teesdale in 1815, while his father, William, a joiner and carpenter by trade, was working on the rebuilding of Eggleston Hall, having been taken on by the architect Ignatius Bonomi.

Clement became interested in drawing in boyhood, and when the family moved to Durham City, he received professional tuition, later becoming apprenticed to a heraldic painter in Darlington.

This led to painting commissions and portraits in the North-East before his career as an artist took off in London