A rare portrait of Britain's Queen Elizabeth has been discovered

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A rare portrait of Britain's Queen Elizabeth has been discovered

The painting dates from 1650 to 1680 and was found in the Duke of Buccleuch's private collection at Boughton House, Northamptonshire, England.

The portrait is a copy of a lost painting from the 1550s and shows the teenage Elizabeth with her siblings Edward and Mary, their father Henry VIII and his jester, Will Somers.

It was examined by art historians Alison Weir and Tracy Borman after the director of Boughton House alerted them to its existence.

Weir and Borman hope to trace the original by publicising the discovery.

Borman said: "The more we found out, the more obvious it was that nobody had come across this. It's clearly a copy of a lost original and it's that mystery that we started to try to solve."

Portraits of Elizabeth before she became queen are exceedingly rare - only two others are known about.

The picture will go on display when the stately home opens in August.

Charles Lister, house manager at Broughton house, said: "The portrait is normally in a private area of the house with a number of other Tudor portraits. We knew it was important because it's a picture of Henry VIII and his family but we did not realise it in the context of Elizabeth as a princess."