A Goldie portrait that vanished from public view for more than a century is expected to fetch about $420,000 when it goes on sale this weekend.
Lost in Thought, Ngāheke, An Arawa Chieftain was originally exhibited in Christchurch in 1917 then disappeared until it resurfaced in Australia in 2020.
The painting depicted a high-ranking chieftain and priest of the Tuhourangi Ngāheke tribe of Te Arawa, who was considered highly tapu for his role scraping down human bones after exhumation to prepare them for reburial.
NZ artbroker director Jen McBride said there had been a vast amount of work to confirm the painting's authenticity, clean it and trace its fascinating backstory.
It had taken extensive technical examination and multiple independent expert reports, she said.
"It's been hopping around and seeing a number of experts, looking at its conservation, its history, finding its original title and finding it in the catalogue," she said.
"They discovered that it originally would have had a kind of oval veneer around it and it had a catalogue number on the back. Matching that up into the original catalogue was kind of a major breakthrough."
Charles Frederick Goldie was known to have worked from photographs and the portrait closely aligned with archival images held in national collections, she said.
Labels and details on the frame linked it to its first public showing at the 1917 Canterbury Society of Arts' annual exhibition in Christchurch.
McBride said the piece was bought from an estate in Melbourne in 2020 by somebody "who took a gamble on it".
"I think they've always been on this journey with the intent to sell it so they feel like they have connected enough dots to kind of fully stand behind its authenticity and now they're ready to present it to the market," she said.
A viewing night would be held at the NZ artbroker gallery in Christchurch on July 23 after the listing went live on Sunday, she said.
"It's always a pretty wondrous moment sitting in front of a Goldie painting, so anyone that hasn't had too many eyes on it is even more special."
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