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Anne Lyles and Martin Gayford, co-curators of an exhibition on Constable's portraits opening at London's National Portrait Gallery tomorrow, have proposed the theory that the paintings are actually of the artist's father and mother, Golding and Ann Constable.

Believed to be from around 1805, when Constable was 29 and a late starter still learning his trade, the two tiny views were among the pictures the artist kept with him all his life.

The portraits stayed in the family until 1925 when they were sold at Sotheby's by a descendant, and the curators believe they were both misidentified. There is nothing in the family papers about Constable painting Grimwood, and if he had, Lyles believes the portrait would have remained with the subject's family.

The portrait of Golding, which was in the service collection of the Colchester and Ipswich Museums since 1926, has been placed beside the portraits of his other sons and daughters in the London exhibition, which also explores the story of the artist's love affair with Maria Bicknell. Ann still hangs in a gallery in Ipswich, separated from her family at the National Portrait Gallery.