PICTURED here is a copy of the George Dunlop Leslie painting that was discovered at Llantarnam Comprehensive School in 2000 and sold for £170,000.

The original painting hit the headlines in 2000 when the a visitor to the school discovered that Leslie - a member of the Royal Academy - had painted the ‘Daughters of Eve’ depiction of three Victorian girls apple picking.

When the painting was sold to raise funds, the school was presented with a full-size copy of the painting to re-hang.

On the closure of Llantarnam Comprehensive School in 2016, the framed copy of the painting came to the museum.

Like all other items given to the Trust for safe-keeping, they are cared for and monitored as part of the work of the museum.

Below, two Torfaen Museum volunteers, Gill and Lindsay, are training on the CALM cataloguing software in the museum’s catalogue office - where you can see the copy of the painting is hung.

Free Press Series: Two Torfaen Museum volunteers, Gill and Lindsay, training to use the museum’s cataloguing system. Picture: Torfaen Museum.Two Torfaen Museum volunteers, Gill and Lindsay, training to use the museum’s cataloguing system. Picture: Torfaen Museum.

In the Catalogue Office, items donated to the museum are ‘accessioned’ into the Torfaen collections by cataloguing – which includes photographing, a conservation survey, in-depth descriptions, measurements and also research into the item. The information is then recorded for posterity and every item is given its own, unique identification number.   

The museum, which is run by the charitable Torfaen Museum Trust, relies on the skills and enthusiasm of its volunteers to look after the more than 20,000 objects of local, Valley history in the museum’s collections. 

Nostalgia is provided by Torfaen Museum.