More than 110 years after it was painted, restorers have found a hidden nude figure and a secret declaration of love in an Australian masterpiece by artist Arthur Streeton. Restorers using X-rays found the love-struck artist had scrawled the words ?Florry Walker my sweetheart? several times on his 1890 painting ?Spring?, and originally included a nude female figure with the name ?Florry? inscribed above it.

The finding led researchers at the National Gallery of Victoria to an unknown Streeton painting, held by Walker?s family, and gave a new insight into the love life of the then penniless 22-year-old artist. ?It really was quite an intense relationship as far as he was concerned,? curator Terry Lane said recently. ?But I think Florry didn?t return his favours.? Streeton later became Australia?s most successful artist, and was one of a group of Impressionists who defined an Australian style with their landscapes. Australia?s most popular painter later life married a Canadian violinist in 1908, when he was 41. He died in 1943, aged 76.