Sir Winston Churchill's final painting expected to fetch £80,000 at auction Sotheby’s

SIR Winston Churchill's final painting - which he gave to the bodyguard who helped prepare his brushes - is going under the hammer.

The Goldfish Pool At Chartwell, depicting the wartime leader's "most special place in the world", is expected to fetch £80,000 at auction.

Sir Winston gave the abstract work to his bodyguard, Sergeant Edmund Murray, in the last few years before the ex-prime minister's death in 1965.

The painting of the goldfish pool at his Chartwell home was Sir Winston's final painting, completed in 1962, but also the last work Murray helped set up.

It remained with Murray's family, who treasured the painted, and has never been exhibited before.

Sir Winston made around 544 paintings after he took the hobby up in the 1920s and it became an "integral part" of his life.

Frances Christie, head of Sotheby's modern and post-war British department, told the Press Association: "It provided a very necessary antidote to public life.

"He writes beautifully about how, when you attack a composition, when you work out the balance of colours and of elements, it is much like planning an offensive.... "

"This was his last ever picture. But even more than that, it was the most special place in the world for Churchill, his home in Kent. It looks out on to the most incredible landscape.

"And for this great statesman, who takes a lot of credit for winning the Second World War, it is that perfect corner... that is forever England... It was where he always longed to return to and was most relaxed."

She added: "It is the view that first captivated him when he bought the house in the early 1920s. And a very special place for him, right until the end of his life, was the goldfish pool.

"The colours, the harmony of different tones together are beautiful, but it verges on the abstract which is very unusual for him... You can see flashes of orange which mark out the goldfish.... He had a really confident, bold brushwork."