Mystery surrounds the identity of a Catholic millionaire who commissioned a set of Stations of the Cross by the renowned Scottish painter Peter Howson.

The Stations are on display in a London gallery for the next three weeks until they are installed in the owner’s private chapel at his home They have been painted in oils onto small wooden panels.

Peter Howson worked as a war artist in Bosnia and Kosovo. He has spoken candidly in the past about his problems with mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction. He converted to Christianity and joined the Church of Scotland three years’ ago while staying at a rehabilitation clinic and doing the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps programme. He later did preparatory drawings for the Stations which were subsequently seen by the wealthy Catholic who commissioned him to paint them.

The Stations can be seen at the Flowers East Gallery until 11 May. The gallery’s Director, Sam Chatterton Dickson, described Howson as one of the foremost British figurative painters.

“In the 1980s and early 1990s, Peter Howson was famous for his pictures of down-and-outs and of victims of society. His figures were victims and aggressors at the same time. There is a sort of duality in his work and it is evident in these religious subjects too”, Chatterton Dickson told The Tablet.

He added that the person who had bought the paintings was anxious to remain anonymous. Howson himself has talked about working on the Stations for 16 hours a day and praying for inspiration each night. He said he had dreamed about them and also had visions of them in his waking hours. "Having done the Stations, I was really starting to understand why Christ did what he did. This tremendous love. I’ve really felt close to him”, he told the Sunday Herald on 5 April.

The Stations and other works by Peter Howson can be seen free at the Flowers East Gallery, 82 Kingsland Road, London E2 (Tel 020 7920 7777) till 11 May.