A GLOBETROTTING Australian ex pat from Nantwich has decided to sell a piece of buried treasure he dug up nearly half a century ago.

Graeme Kerr discovered the Victorian marble sculpture beneath his antipodean farmhouse while working as a sheep farmer down under.

Later, when his computer software firm took off in the 1970s, he spent decades carting the Antique – by Italian artist, Achille Simonetti – to various homes around the world.

Via South Africa, Durban and Sydney, the piece is now expected to fetch between £3,500-4,500 in a sale next month at Nantwich fine art auctioneers, Peter Wilson.

Mr Kerr explained: “The farmhouse was built on capped wooden piles to keep out the white ants and one day shortly after buying it, I was checking the condition of the pilings and saw this white object half buried in the sand.

“I scrabbled underneath and eventually uncovered five pieces of what was obviously a carved marble statue: the little boy’s leg section, the top of his head and body, the dog’s leg section, a paw and the base.

“I spoke to the previous owner of the property and he wished me well with it. He was a bit of a collector of antiques and works of art and I imagine the statue had had some kind of mishap and been discarded under the house.

“Over time and with the rains, it had obviously sunk into the sand and become almost completely buried.”

Mr Kerr assembled the bits together at his house in Sydney with super glue, using a rope pulley attached to a ceiling beam in the basement to lower the top on to the base and align the limbs.

“We had the statue cleaned professionally after that, but you can still see some stains from where it lay in the ground,” added 72-year-old.

“I’ll be sad to see it go but having rescued it and treasured it for 48 years, it’s time to give someone else the pleasure of owning it.

Called Playmates, the sculpture was completed sometime in the 1890s. It will be sold by Peter Wilson in a two-day auction on November 27-28.

For further information, contact the auctioneers on 01270 623878 or auctions@peterwilson.co.uk.

Achille Simonetti (1838-1900) was born in Rome and trained under his father Louis, another sculptor. He emigrated to Australia in 1871 and was in Sydney by 1874, where he set up a studio.