Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Portrait of Jane Morris, a personal sketch of his great love, will sell on January 21 at Bonhams.

Jane Burden was hired as a model but became William Morris' wife, and Rossetti's lover soon after

The sketch comes as part of the 19th Century European, Victorian and British Impressionist Art sale in London, estimated at £20,000-30,000 ($31,500-47,000).

Rossetti (1828-1882) met Jane Morris (nee Burden) when recruiting models for the Oxford Union murals. She soon became wife of fellow pre-Raphaelite and close friend William Morris, marrying him in 1859.

However, Rossetti was obsessed with Jane Morris' beauty. After William Morris left the pair to furnish his new Kelmscott Manor while visiting Iceland, they began a long relationship that would last until Rossetti's death.

The drawing dates to 1873, depicting Morris lying on a couch and reading a book. It was almost certainly created at Kelmscott Manor, and was later shown at the exhibition held by Rossetti's former model and mistress Fanny Cornforth.

The work was thought to have been lost, and does not appear in Virginia Surtees' Rossetti Catalogue Raisonne (1971). Recently rediscovered, it had been owned by American collectors John Hudson and Olivia Poole, and was passed down through the family.

The record for a watercolour by Rossetti was set at Sotheby's last week, with Venus Verticordia selling at $4.5m. The most valuable of his works is A Christmas Carol, which made $7.4m in 2013.

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