Mills and Boon - Gothic romance cover - 1968

Great piece by Frank Haseler (1928 - 1996). It's on thick art board and looks like gouache but I could be wrong.

The artwork seems to be the basis for the cover of the Mills and Boon novel 'Beloved Sparrow' published in 1968 (see additional images). However the published image has been altered quite a bit - adding detail, moving the building up, adding a running figure in the background and changing the expression on the man. The changes on the published cover seem quite crudely executed and have a 'paste-on' feel so it seems possible that they used a production copy of the original art and then fiddled about with it. There is also the possibility that the artwork was used more than once and that a version closer to this original was published somewhere else. Other Frank Haseler pieces I've seen have had a number of different publication titles and dates on the back, suggesting they were used several times.

On sale at: https://hoxtonarcade.etsy.com/listing/1732055514