A RARE water-colour painted by one of the 18th Century's most famous book illustrators will come under the hammer today.

Thomas Bewick won fame in 1790 after publishing A General History of Quadrupeds, with illustrations he painstakingly created of four-footed creatures from across the globe.

A 200-year-old water-colour of an antelope, that was used in the book, will be up for auction at Anderson and Garland in Newcastle, along with an engraved version of the work. The painting is expected to fetch several hundred pounds.

Hundreds of his drawings and water-colours are held by the Hancock Museum in Newcastle, but are seldom displayed as exposure fades the work.

Bewick, from Ovingham, in Northumberland, who designed bank notes and created book plates, was a keen naturalist.