Can you help? Scarborough Art Gallery wants to know the artist of this painting of Scarborough’s Grand Hotel

Believed to have been painted around 1867, the year it opened – it was both the largest hotel and the largest brick structure in Europe at the time – the pen, ink and wash on paper image depicts the famous hotel from a location just above the Spa.

Andrew Clay, chief executive of Scarborough Museums and Galleries, said: “We can guess from its detail and accuracy that it was made after the hotel was completed and is likely to have been specially commissioned, but we don’t have any records about the painting or the artist.

"We’d love to know who they were.”

The Grand Hotel was designed by architect Cuthbert Brodrick, an architect also known for a number of public buildings in Leeds, including the Corn Exchange, the Mechanics Institute – now the City Museum – and the Town Hall.

His grandiose, European-influenced style was very popular with an upper middle class Victorian society that had a strong sense of its own importance.

Construction began in 1863 and was completed in 1867, at a cost of more tha £100,000 – £11.5 million nowadays. At the time, it was the largest brick building in Europe.

The hotel's yellow – also referred to as tawny – brickwork was made locally in Hunmanby and is complemented with traditional red brickwork around the windows

The Grand Hotel is often described as a calendar hotel, architecturally reflecting the elements of a year: four towers representing the seasons; 12 floors for the months; 52 chimneys marking the weeks; and its original 365 rooms equating to the number of days. Its V-shaped design honoured Queen Victoria.

Several politicians were also spotted at the hotel, with the first Labour Prime Minister – Ramsay MacDonald – making a visit and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who visited for a Conservative Party conference.

If you do know anything about either the painting or the artist, contact: [email protected]