A VICTORIAN oil painting, which used to be owned by a wealthy Accrington-born businessman and which was sold for the equivalent of about £250 after his death, is now set to fetch up to £150,000 at auction.

The 21in by 16in picture, titled Catarina, was painted by Lord Leighton in 1878 and was owned and treasured by Accrington-born Colonel John Hargreaves.

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The Hargreaves family owned the Broad Oak Printworks, which was the largest firm of calico printers in Accrington and employed hundreds of people from the town.

At different times, Colonel Hargreaves lived at Ormerod House, Burnley and Whalley Abbey, Whalley. He also owned a mansion at Maiden Erleigh near Reading, Berkshire.

At Westminster Abbey on September 15, 1880, Colonel Hargreaves’s nephew, England cricketer Reginald Hargreaves, married Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice In Wonderland.

Colonel Hargreaves was born at Accrington on August 30, 1839, and after his death, at the age of 56, his beloved oil painting, Catarina,was sold at Christie’s on May 2, 1896, for 231 guineas, the equivalent of £242.55 in modern money.

Now it is expected to fetch between £100,000 and £150,000 at Sotheby’s in London on July 15.

Auctioneers Sotheby’s said: “Catarina depicts an olive-skinned Italian model dressed in traditional Campagna-smock shirt, with amber beads at her throat and jasmine flowers in her hair. The composition is beautifully simple, being free of all incidental detail or anecdotal association, nor is any information given about the identity or personality of the sitter.”

Scarborough-born Frederic Leighton painted the picture in 1878 and it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1879.

In 1896, Leighton made history by becoming the first artist to be made a Lord. He died just three weeks later .