A long-lost portrait of Virginia Woolf has gone on display in Sussex after its whereabouts were revealed by its owner.

The work, last seen in 1934, was painted by the writer's sister, celebrated artist Vanessa Bell.

It has been loaned to the museum at Charleston, the farmhouse outside Lewes where the writers, artists and intellectuals of the Bloomsbury Group gained much of their inspiration.

Woolf, author of To The Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway, turned down a request to sit for the National Portrait Gallery.

She revealed why in private letters to her nephew Quentin Bell, saying: "They keep the drawing in a cellar and when I've been dead ten years they have it out and say, 'Does anyone want to know what Mrs Woolf looked like?'. 'No', say all the others and then it's torn up."

It was known from some of Vanessa Bell's unpublished letters that Woolf, who died in 1941, sat for a portrait in 1934.

Bell recalled how Woolf kept them entertained throughout the sitting by reading from the scandalous memoirs of their frequently-mocked friend and hostess Ottoline Morrell - although in the finished portrait she is calm, composed and book-less.

The portrait was exhibited at London's Lefervre Gallery in 1934 before being sold to a private collector.

A recent call to the Charleston Trust revealed where it was and negotiations began.

Trust director Alistair Upton said: "This portrait is a thrilling discovery and we are very pleased to be able to show it at Charleston."