The long-missing masterpiece of painter William Louis Sonntag hung in public view Wednesday at the Dayton Art Institute, the Dayton Daily News reported.

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Sonntag considered "Dream of Italy," created in 1859 and missing since 1882, his best work. At 8-foot-by-6-foot, it also was the largest by the landscape painter who died in 1900.

"While not a household name today, he was one of a group of notable American painters who created oversized, romantic and highly stylized landscapes that captured the country's imagination for several decades," the newspaper said of the Cincinnati native.

DAI officials said they paid less than $1 million for the painting rescued from an attic and missing more than 140 years.

"No one else has a work of this size and grandeur by Sonntag," American art curator Tuliza Fleming told the newspaper.