A painting by Britain's most expensive living painter can be had for free -- if you buy the house where it was painted on a dining room wall, observers say.

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Painter Lucien Freud, 87, lived in the 17th century house in Dorset in the 1950s before he achieved fame and started selling his work for millions of dollars, The Sunday Times of London reported.

He painted a mural of primroses on a wall of the dining room, but later owners of the home wallpapered it over.

A neighbor tipped off the current owners of the house to the mural's existence, and they had it uncovered.

Owners Charles Scheyd and Lynn Pryor called the discovery a "once in a lucky lifetime occurrence."

"It's truly like finding a Van Gogh in your attic -- it's completely unexpected," Pryor said.

Planning to move abroad, they have put the home on the market for $5.6 million, The Times said.

"The ideal would be that the house goes to someone who appreciates the work of Lucian Freud," Pilor Ordovas, an art gallery director, said. "It is intended to be there and to be appreciated. If it was not, it would be a real shame."