LONDON.- An intriguing early portrait by the Venetian master, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, is to be offered at Bonhams Old Master Paintings Sale in London on 8 July. The work, which has never before appeared on the market, is estimated at £200,000-300,000.

Portrait of a girl with a basket of fruit and flowers is thought to have been painted between 1720-1725 when Tiepolo was rapidly establishing a career in Venice, the city of his birth. During this period he worked on important commissions including the vast Crucifixion at San Martino in Burano; the Madonna of Mount Carmel for the Confraternity of the Virgin of Carmel at Sant'Aponal and the Glory of Saint Theresa on the vault of the chapel of Saint Theresa in the church of Santa Maria di Nazareth, Venice. Around 1725 the artist completed the decorations in fresco and on canvas for the Palazzo Sandi in Corte dell'Albero. Tiepolo's success at home brought him important commissions outside Venice and in July 1725 it was recorded that the Patriarch Dionisio Dolfin was making in his palace in Udine in northeastern Italy (now the Archbishop's Palace) a staircase 'the like of which was not to be found in all Italy' - a reference to the now famous frescoes which Tiepolo was painting, representing the Fall of the Rebel Angels.

Bonhams Director of Old master Paintings Andrew McKenzie said: “Tiepolo was one of the most celebrated painters of the 18th century and was in great international demand among the most cultivated courts of Europe. This is a fascinating early work in which the artist’s quality is already obvious.”

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was born in Venice in 1696. One of the most renowned Italian artists of the 18th century he also worked extensively in Germany and Spain and was particularly known for his frescoes. He died in Madrid in 1770.