Updated February 21, 2017 12:56:25

Photo: Allan Campbell and Jim Elder look at Sir Hans Heysen's watercolour The Camp at Wononka Creek. (ABC News: Caroline Winter)

A Heysen masterpiece has returned to South Australia and is expected to break a record price for a watercolour when it goes to auction.

Sir Hans Heysen's painting of The Camp at Wonoka Creek, thought to be the artist's greatest and largest at 55x74 centimetres was recently found in Dusseldorf, Germany.

The picture, of sheep grazing while a man and his horse rest in the shade, was painted in 1932 on the first of Heysen's 11 trips to the state's Flinders Ranges.

Heysen expert and curator at the old Heysen home and gallery, The Cedars in Hahndorf, Allan Campbell said the painting was "one of the most beautiful watercolours I have ever seen".

"He never finished his watercolours on site so it would have been completed in the studio at The Cedars," Mr Campbell said.

Photo: Sir Hans Heysen's painting, The Camp at Wononka Creek, is tipped to break a price record. (ABC News: Caroline Winter)

The painting was recorded in Heysen's personal ledger and remained in his collection until 1958 when it was sold to Sir James McGregor, an Adelaide-born wool broker and art collector who was reputed to be Australia's largest wool buyer.

It is thought the painting reached Germany as a gift to one of Sir James's friends.

Art dealer Jim Elder, of Elder Fine Art, said Sir James would have paid about 100 pounds for the painting.

The painting will be sold at auction next month.

Mr Elder expects the watercolour to sell for between $60,000 and $80,000.

"It will break the South Australian record for a watercolour, if not the Australian record," he said.

Topics: arts-and-entertainment, art-history, fine-art-photography, visual-art, adelaide-5000, hahndorf-5245, sa

First posted February 21, 2017 12:11:58