£602,000 return on Lowry painting

The painting had been expected to sell for half a million pounds

One of LS Lowry's famous matchstick men paintings, which was originally bought for £300 in 1959, has sold for £602,400 at auction in London.

The work, titled Industrial Landscape, had not been seen in public for almost 50 years before being offered for sale.

Lowry had given it to the Lefevre art gallery in London in 1958, but it was sold before it could be exhibited.

Eleven other Lowrys were up for sale at Bonhams' 20th Century British art auction, which raised more than £3.1m.

Works by David Hockney, John Piper and Keith Vaughn also featured, but a sculpture by Dame Barbara Hepworth failed to sell.

The brass and string sculpture, Theme On Electronics (Orpheus), has been expected to raise £600,000.

'Among the best'

LS Lowry was noted for his drab industrial landscapes, which often feature small, stick-like figures going about their everyday business in the foreground.

Industrial Landscape is one such painting, showing people pushing prams and walking dogs while a swathe of chimneys billow smoke into the air.

Matthew Bradbury, head of 20th Century British art at Bonhams, said it was a "remarkably easy painting to engage with".

"Of its size, it is among the very best Lowrys I have ever seen.

"Its composition is thoroughly structured, with the complex interaction of working-class people in the foreground through to the beautifully composed architecture in the middle distance."

The oil painting had been estimated at £500,000. It was exhibited for the first time at Salford's Lowry Museum in advance of the auction.