A sketchbook by Maltese artist Count Amadeo Preziosi is one of the highlights of an upcoming sale by Bonhams Auctioneers, in London, and is expected to fetch up to £500,000.

The book, which Count Preziosi had taken on a grand tour of Europe in 1875, contains stunning views of Malta where the Grand Harbour, Senglea and even ladies dressed in the għonnella are depicted in watercolour.

The self-titled Souvenir De Mon Dernier Voyage, a collection of 81 small sketches, is set to fetch between £320,000 and £500,000 and will go under the hammer on September 16 at the New Bond Street sale rooms of the world renowned auctioneers.

Giles Peppiatt, head of the travel and topographical pictures at Bonhams, said that "to find one picture by Count Preziosi would be a pleasure but to find no fewer than 81 of his works in his own personal sketchbook is astounding".

The painter was born into a wealthy aristocratic Maltese family but his father was strongly opposed to his artistic inclinations and so he left for Constantinople.

After having studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1840, he left the city in 1842, travelling to Italy and then on to Istanbul after noting that painters were all flocking to the "gateway to the east", as it was once known. He had only intended to spend two years there but fell in love with the city and its people and hardly noticed the years going by.

Despite his father's urgent requests to return to Malta, the painter refused to return home, where his family all followed "respectable careers" as doctors, lawyers and merchants.

He spoke four languages and married a Turkish-Greek woman and the couple had four children. He died following a hunting accident and was buried in the Catholic cemetery in Yesilköy, Istanbul.