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JOHANNESBURG. — A South African painting worth millions has been discovered in a London flat where it was being used as a kitchen notice board, fine art and antique auctioneer Bonhams said yesterday.

The 76-year-old painting by artist Irma Stern titled Arab in Black was discovered earlier this year by Bonhams’s head of South African art, Hannah O’Leary. “I was undertaking a routine valuation when I spotted this masterpiece hanging in the kitchen covered in letters, postcards and bills.

“It was a hugely exciting find, even before I learned of its political significance,” O’Leary said in a statement.

The painting was put up for auction in the early 1960s to raise money for the lawyers representing former president Nelson Mandela and his co-accused during the Treason Trial which began in 1956 and ended in 1961.

A Treason Trial Defence Fund had been set up to raise money for their legal fees and to support the defendants’ families, Bonhams said.

Stern had donated a work to the cause. The painting was originally owned by Betty Suzman, an art collector and daughter of Max Sonnenberg, who founded Woolworths South Africa in 1931. — News24.