London - A previously unknown photograph of British nurse Florence Nightingale went on display on Monday at an exhibition dedicated to the woman whose work with wounded soldiers during the Crimean War made her a household name.

A newly discovered photograph of Florence Nightingale in the grounds of her home, Embley Park, Hampshire is seen in this undated handout image released by The Florence Nightingale Museum Trust August 6, 2006. The album containing the photograph will go on display at the Florence Nightingale Museum from August 7 until November 7, 2006. [Reuters]

The portrait of the pioneer nurse sitting under the shade of a tree reading was discovered in an album of pictures taken in the mid-19th century by William Slater, and was shot during one of only eight known photographic sittings by Nightingale.

The beneficiaries of Slater's last descendant, who died in 2005, left the album to the Florence Nightingale Museum in London, where the photograph is on display until November 7.

The museum (www.florence-nightingale.co.uk) said Nightingale was reluctant to be photographed for religious reasons and because she was worried personal fame might hinder her work in public health.

The black-and-white image was taken in 1858, when Nightingale was 37 or 38 and already famous in Britain for her work in Crimea.

She is widely known as "The Lady With the Lamp" because of a poem that used the phrase and images of her carrying a lamp and tending wounded soldiers.