A little-known sister painting of Sir Edwin Landseer's Monarch of the Glen is expected to fetch up to £4m when it is auctioned in London next month.

Scene in Braemar features a 12-point stag on a Highland peak.

It was commissioned by the railway magnate Edward Ladd Betts for his home in Kent and has since passed through various private collections.

Its last appearance at auction was in 1994 when it was sold for £793,500.

Sotheby's estimates it will sell for between £3m and £4m when it goes under the hammer in July.

Julian Gascoigne, senior director in the paintings department, said the work was one of Landseer's great Highland masterpieces.

He described it as an atmospheric sister painting of the Monarch of the Glen, which hangs in the National Galleries of Scotland.

Gascoigne said: "Where the Monarch shows the stag in the brilliance of youth, this is a darker, more epic vision: majestic, charged with tension, and iconic in its vision of the Highlands.

"It is rarely seen in public and among the most spectacular Landseers still in private ownership - monumental in scale and a true masterpiece by one of the greatest animal painters."

Sir Edwin Landseer was Queen Victoria's favourite artist and regularly stayed at Mar Lodge, close to Balmoral.

Monarch of the Glen is his most famous work, and one of the most recognisable and reproduced paintings in British art.

It features on everything from whisky bottles to biscuit tins - and even appeared in the hit US show Schitt's Creek.

The painting had been on loan to the National Galleries for 17 years from the drinks company Diaego, who wanted to sell it.

While it is undoubtedly a showstopper, it is not without contradictions and there was criticism that it was not a representation of "real" Scotland.

But the success of the campaign meant there was also funding to take the painting around the country in a purpose-built touring art gallery.

This allowed as many people as possible to engage with the painting they had paid for.

'Masterly in conception and effect'

Although lesser known, Scene in Braemar is much larger at almost 9ft (2.74m).

The industrialist Edward Betts was so delighted with the epic work in 1859 that he paid £800 - £200 above the fee Landseer had requested.

A banking crisis forced Betts to sell the work, along with the rest of his collection in 1868.

As a result, Scene in Braemar set a record when it sold for 4,000 guineas.

In 1857, The Times praised it as "masterly in conception and effect" and a worthy partner to Monarch of the Glen.

By 1868 it changed hands again when it was sold at auction at Christie's and entered the art collection of Henry William Ferdinand Bolckow.

When he died, 70 of the works - including Braemar - were sold in 1887.

The writer Beatrix Potter described it as "splendid" and singled out Braemar as "one of the leading pictures".

It was then acquired by Sir Edward Cecil Guinness and remained in his family until its last auction appearance in 1994.

The work has been exhibited in public galleries on a number of occasions.

In 2005 it appeared in Edinburgh alongside Monarch of the Glen as part of a major celebration of Landseer.