A painting that has not been seen in over 100 years will go under the hammer this month and is expected to fetch up to £120,000.

Uruguayan artist Juan Manuel Blanes painted Gaucho On A Horseback in the late 1800s.

Art enthusiasts can place their bids for the oil painting when it appears on sale at Toovey's auction house in Washington near Storrington.

Juan was renowned for his historical paintings and portraits, capturing events that were pivotal in Uruguay's years of conflict after Spanish independence.

The Argus: The Gaucho on a horseback paintingThe Gaucho on a horseback painting (Image: Google)

The canvas painting is dated circa 1879 to 1885, and was first owned by Spanish aristocat Baldomero Hyacinth de Bertodano. He lived near Malmsbury in Wiltshire, where the painting hung until his death in 1921.

After he died, the painting was auctioned along with other contents of the house, to divide the estate between his five family members.

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His brother, Charles Edmund de Bertodano, bought the painting, which has remained in his family to this day.

A spokesman for Toovey's said: "The golden glow of Blanes’s palette and the way that he paints the effect of light playing on that prairie is remarkable.

"Blanes’s gaucho paintings celebrate the way of life of these independent, rugged horsemen whose lives embodied the South American ‘Wild West’ and national identity in a similar way to the cowboys of the United States.

"The open prairie beneath an expansive sky would have contrasted with the pressured urban lives of the cosmopolitan collectors who patronised Blanes’s work."

Toovey's fine art consultant Tim Williams said: "This is the first time that this important painting has appeared on the market in some 102 years.

"I can’t wait until sale day to see what happens.”