The painting is The Chinese Girl, also known as The Green Lady, by the South African artist Vladimir Tretchikoff, a Russian emigre who settled in South Africa, Terry Ingram writes.
A medium sized (75 by 55 cm) oil on canvas, it will be sold at Bonhams South African art auction in London sale on March 20 with an estimate of £300,000 to £500,000.
In an interview Dame Edna said of the print taken from this original painting ''It described my own home and people listened and they said, "'We know that house, we know that Laminex, we know that lava lamp, we know that picture on the wall, the Chinese girl with the tinted green face. We've got that'.
And slowly they began to feel that where they lived was not such a boring place after all because I had enshrined it in a work of art.''
Other images have been reproduced in large numbers such as the dog in front of a gramophone as the label on HMV records and even Australia Blamire Young's design of a kangaroo on a stamp being celebrated this year with a centenary exhibition in Melbourne.
But the original painting which is now being sold is thought to be the most widely produced wall print ever produced.
Tretchikoff claimed that by the end of his career he had sold half a million large-format reproductions of the 'Chinese Girl' print worldwide (and that didn't include smaller print versions).
The image also appeared on mugs, wallpaper and assorted other Chinese Girl paraphernalia.
It is particularly associated with the 1950s when the print was sold widely in South Africa, Britain, Europe and America.
Bonhams says the picture was bought directly from Tretchikoff by an American woman in Chicago when he was touring the US in the 50's. It has been in the same family ever since and is being sold by the original buyer's granddaughter.
Because of its erstwhile frequency of appearance in opportunity shops in subsequent decades it attracted appreciation as the essence of kitsch.
But with the arrival of the thrift shop picture as an eminent collectible it assumed a new vogue.
The work will now enjoy the extraordinary transformation into a serious work of art with a tour to New York and Johannesburg before being sold in Bonhams rooms in London's New Bond Street.
An obituary of Tretchikoff said that the painting was the most familiar in the world with a greater recognition factor than Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa,' Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' and Gainsborough's 'Blue Boy.'
The 'Chinese Girl' is inspired by the sitter Monika Sing-Lee, who was working at her uncle's automatic laundry in Sea Point, Cape Town when Tretchikoff spotted her and asked her to model for him.
Giles Peppiatt, director of South African Art at Bonhams, says the “iridescent hues” of 'Chinese Girl' reflect Tretchikoff's remarkable experimentation with the possibilities of his colour palette.
Tretchikoff, who died in 2006 at the age of 93 has been taken to heart by South Africans for whom he attracts the same kind of admiration that the British have for L.S.L. Lowry.
A retrospective exhibition The People's Painter, was held at IZIKO South African National Gallery in Cape Town in 2011.
His work has sold at auction, where it makes frequent appearances, for up to £337,250.
