SHE may not look much like the traditional image of Eliza Doolittle, but this painting is said to have been the inspiration for the classic story.

Clytie, painted in 1896 by Lord Frederic Leighton, was yesterday delivered and installed at Bournemouth’s Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum as part of the new exhibition In The Footsteps of Gods and Heroes.

The model for Clytie, the mythological nymph depicted in the painting, was Leighton’s favourite model and muse Dorothy Dene, born Ada Alice Pullen.

Thirty years her senior, Lord Leighton acted as Dorothy’s benefactor and also encouraged her to pursue her dreams of acting.

His attempt to mould and refine the beautiful cockney girl is said to be the inspiration behind George Bernard Shaw’s Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in the play Pygmalion and its later musical adaptation My Fair Lady.

Since Clytie was acquired by Leighton House in London in 2008 with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund it has only been displayed at three other museums.

It will be part of the Russell-Cotes exhibition open to the public from Friday.

Its display at the Bournemouth museum forms part of a Heritage Lottery funded programme of exhibitions, events and activities designed to share the painting with the nation.

Other paintings in the exhibition include two six-metre friezes from Leighton House called The Dance (1881-1883) and Music (1885).