HAMPSHIRE artist John Emms suffered such severe financial problems after a stroke forced him to give up work that some tradesmen were required to accept his pictures in lieu of payment.

Now, in an ironic twist, one of his paintings could fetch up to £175,000 at an auction in America.

The four feet by three feet picture, titled Hounds And A Terrier In A Kennel, is expected to sell for between $150,000 and $250,000 (about £100,000 to £175,000) at Bonhams in New York on February 17.

Emms specialised in pictures of dogs and horses.

Norfolk-born, Emms moved to Lyndhurst in the 1880s and built a large house with a studio there named The Firs, in Queens Road.

In 1880, when he was 37, he married Lyndhurst girl Fanny Primmer, who, at 21 was 16 years younger.

Between 1883 and 1894 they had five children – Dorothy, Margery, Barton, Gladys and George Henry. Barton died tragically in 1889, the year after he was born.

Since Emms’s death, on November 1, 1912, at the age of 69, his work has steadily soared in value. At Bonhams in New York, on February 14, 2006, a new world auction record for an Emms work was set when his 1898 oil painting, New Forest Foxhounds, sold for £588,737.

According to Bonhams: “Emms cut a flamboyant figure. He was always dressed in a long, black cloak and matching wide-brimmed hat.

“He and his family led a somewhat bohemian life.

"When times were good, after selling a painting, he would take wife Fanny, their three daughters and son up to London to stay in the best hotels and lived life to the full.

“But times were not always good.

"During the early 1900s, Emms suffered a stroke and was unable to work.

"As a result, he took to heavy drinking and the family’s financial situation went from bad to worse.”

In her Dictionary of British Equestrian Artists, author Sally Mitchell confirms: “Emms suffered ill health and was unable to work and at one time village tradesmen had his pictures on their walls in lieu of payment of their accounts. Things were so bad that the family became destitute.

“In spite of warnings that ‘you will never get any rent’ a kindly landlady was so sorry for Mrs Emms that she let them have a house and although often many months overdue the rent was always paid.

“It is said he first went to Lyndhurst to help on in the execution of the fresco, The Ten Virgins, in Lyndhurst parish church, where he added the owl, the symbol of sloth.”

Charles O’Brien, a director of auctioneers Bonhams, said: “Emms is one of the best sporting artists of his time, the late nineteenth century, whose work is always popular at auction.”