A PAINTING of hop-pickers in Malvern will go under the hammer at Sotheby's in London next week.

The picture was painted by Dame Laura Knight, one of Britain's most outstanding female artists.

The oil-painting, entitled The Hop-Pickers, Malvern, could fetch up to £30,000.

Knight moved to the Malvern area from London during the Second World War. One of the reasons she chose Malvern was she wanted to paint hop-pickers, and she was able to do so at Callow Farm, Callow End.

Later on, she became an official war artist and was sent to paint the Nuremburg Trials.

She is one of only 33 women artists to have been elected to the Royal Academy and was the first woman artist to be made a dame.

She died days before her 93rd birthday in 1970.