The Telegraph has yet another discovery of a previously unknown painting. This one is by the Irish painter William Orpen who was a war artist during the First World War. It turns out he made a copy of a painting for Lord Beaverbrook as a thank you gift:

Curators at the Imperial War Museum had told the owner, a retired writer in his 60s who does not want to be named, the painting was just a copy. Its back does bear the inscription ‘Copy by person unknown’.

But he had a nagging doubt about his picture of a radiant young woman, draped in an army overcoat, which had hung on the wall of his suburban home for years. Maas was taken by its quality and noticed that the signature – Nepro Mailliw – spelt ‘William Orpen’ backwards. He researched the painting and found a reference to the second version in a letter from Orpen to Beaverbrook.

WW1 Copy That’s Worth £250,000 (Telegraph)