A view of Hampstead, which turned up in a house clearance before being bought in a Flask Walk antique shop, goes under the hammer this month.

David Hanson, who is selling the painting because his wife does not like it, was walking past the shop when he spotted it outside.

"I went back the next day and it had gone," said Hanson, who owns Hampstead restaurant 28 Church Row.

"When I enquired, they said they had taken it inside as they had so many people asking about it, but they didn’t have a price as they were trying to find the artist."

He bought the painting for £1,500, but said: "My excitement was short lived when I took it home to my wife. She was less than impressed as she didn’t like it and the painting is very large.

"To my wife's annoyance everyone that came to our house liked it. But I felt it best to sell to someone who appreciates it as much as I do. It would be lovely if someone in Hampstead bought it rather than an international buyer who has never seen St John’s Church."

Depicting a view over rooftops, Late Summer Morning, Hampstead by Geoffrey Rhoades is in the Homes and Interiors sale at Bonham's on March 29 with a guide price of £700-£1,000.

The artist's son Peter told Hanson he had never seen the painting - which turned up during a house clearance - but believes it may have been completed around the same time as Winter Afternoon Chalk Farm 1935, which is in the Tate Gallery collection.

Rhoades (1898 to 1980) studied at Clapham Art School before serving as a merchant sailor during WWI. Post war, he studied at the Slade School of art and in 1928 was invited to teach at the Working Men's College in Camden and became a much admired art teacher. He and wife Joan lived in Greville Road, Kilburn, but moved out to Essex with Peter due to the Blitz.

Hans Feibusch, a German Jewish artist who settled in Hampstead in the 1930s, wrote of Rhoades' art: "The curious atmosphere, sometimes brooding, even slightly frightening, sometimes cheerful, that envelops his landscapes and figures.. is created by a rich texture of paint applied in small touches. He loved to go over his pictures again and again, sometimes over long spells of time, enriching and deepening them and thus creating a sensuous quality of texture. The pictures.. grow in significance the longer one looks at them."

Peter Rhoades has described his father as "a gentle and very talented artist," and told Hanson he was "very pleased" to know the painting had come to light.

The auction details are at www.bonhams.com/auction/27503/lot/70/geoffrey-rhoades-british-1898-1980-late-summer-morning-hampstead/