diff --git a/glib/Variant.cs b/glib/Variant.cs
index 9ff39f670..f12283861 100644
--- a/glib/Variant.cs
+++ b/glib/Variant.cs
@@ -59,6 +59,13 @@ namespace GLib {
 			this.handle = g_variant_ref_sink (handle);
 		}
 
+		[DllImport (Global.GLibNativeDll, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
+		static extern IntPtr g_variant_new_variant (IntPtr val);
+
+		public static Variant NewVariant (Variant val) {
+			return new Variant (g_variant_new_variant (val.Handle));
+		}
+
 		[DllImport (Global.GLibNativeDll, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
 		static extern IntPtr g_variant_new_boolean (bool val);