A VICTORIAN oil painting which hung in Blackburn for decades is expected to fetch around £500,000 at auction.

An Arab of the Desert Of Sinai was painted 150 years ago by renowned artist John Frederick Lewis.

Blackburn art dealer Richard Haworth, who also taught at the former Blackburn Ragged School in Bent Street, bought it around 100 years ago for the relatively inexpensive price of a few hundred pounds.

When the First World War started Mr Haworth, who lived in Merlin Road, Revidge, sold it to his friend, mill owner John Edmondson, from Mellor Brook.

With money earned from mills in Blackburn and Whittle-le-Woods, Mr Edmondson went on to build up a collection of some 140 paintings, including Lewis's piece, which he exhibited at Blackburn art gallery in 1920.

When he died in 1930, he left an estate including the paintings, which would be worth nearly £3.5m today.

Now An Arab of the Desert of Sinai is coming up for sale at Christie's in London on July 2, and is expected to fetch between £400,000 and £600,000.

If it does sell for £600,000 it will become the third most valuable picture by Lewis sold at auction.

The current world record for a Lewis work is £2,472,000 paid at Christie's in 2005 for his 1875 painting The Midday Meal in Cairo.

Lewis spent 10 years in the Egyptian capital and some of his finest works have a Middle Eastern theme and are now much sought-after.

Vanessa Mitchell, keeper of art at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, said: "It was not uncommon for local mill owners such as John Edmondson, of Chadwick Street mill, to own expensive artworks.

"Edmondson was obviously a man of good taste because the artist, John Frederick Lewis, rose to great popularity when he returned to England in 1851 after spending 10 years in the Middle East."

Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery also has a watercolour by Lewis which is currently jet-setting around the world in a year-long exhibition.

It has just returned from America and will be exhibited next at Tate Britain from June 4 to August 31.