The splendidly sturdy "Miss Bentham," a painting by the American George Bellows which was once owned by Andy Warhol, has become the first nude acquired by the renowned collection of the Barber Institute in Birmingham, where she joins works by Botticelli, Rubens, Van Dyck, Van Gogh, and Picasso.

It is only the second work by the painter, regarded as one of the greatest of early 20th-century American artists and much better known for his gritty urban and brutally realistic boxing scenes than for naked ladies, to enter a British collection.