A PREVIOUSLY unknown painting by celebrated Suffolk artist John Constable has sold for just over �145,000 at auction – more than double its guide price.

The oil painting, titled A Young Girl in a Woodland Landscape, was sold to an anonymous buyer at Sotheby’s for �145,250.

It depicts a girl in red clothes walking through an area of woodland and was heralded as “an exciting new discovery” by the auction house which put a guide price of between �60,000 and �80,000 on the work.

A spokeswoman for Sotheby’s said: “The work was previously untraced and unrecorded – this painting is an exciting new discovery.

“Constable has specifically focused his attention upon the depiction of the native British trees, including the prominent elm tree in the foreground of this particular scene.

“However, the vulnerability of the female figure in red who is walking through the relative darkness of this woodland setting strikes a particular poetic and romantic tone in a painting which is very much more than just a landscape study.

“It should be noted that it has been suggested that these oil paintings may actually date from c. 1816 on the basis of a recently discovered and clearly related pencil drawing which is dated 1816.”

John Constable, who was born in East Bergholt in 1776, is one of the most famous English Romantic painters.

His most famous paintings include Dedham Vale of 1802 and The Hay Wain of 1821.

Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, he was never financially successful and did not become a member of the establishment until he was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52.