Lindauer Painting Amongst Great NZ Pieces For Auction at Christie's London

Lot 11 Lindauer Hinemoa

Christie's London have a Topographical Art Sale on December 15th which features works from the Americas Africa, Asia and Australiasia. Among the lots representing Aotearoa are works by Richard Aldworth Oliver - a collection of sketches and a few artefacts from when he was appointed to command Her Majesty's Sloop the Fly, visiting our waters between 1847-51.  His sketches are said to be amongst the first pictorial surveys depicting Maori life after colonial settlement.  The sketches (Lot 5) include a watercolour of the stage erected for the Maori feast for Sir Govenor Grey at Kerikeri.  There is also a taiaha and what is catalogued as a shard, which looks to be a greenstone adze (lot 4). The 20 watercolours are estimated at £15,000. In 1984 a group of similar works sold in Auckland for $139,200. Read the sale write up and history of these works from the time by Leonard Bell in Art New Zealand  here. Lot 4 artefacts sold for £6,250. Lot 5, the sketches sold for £17,500.

Goldie is represented in the sale with an oil of entitled 'Memories No. 5 Wiripine Ninia' estimated at £40,000. Sells for £131,000.

​A work by Vera Cummings of an unnamed maori chief is lot number 10. Sells for £2,375.

Most magnificent is this large scale (1220 x 1470 mm) Lindauer work from 1899 which is untitled but thought to be a depiction of Hinemoa of Te Arawa. It is similar to a smaller version in the Auckland Art Gallery which is from the Partridge Collection (now on show in the Lindauer exhibition).  It has come from a vendor in Midwestern America. Estimates are £120,000 - 180,000.  Hinemoa sells for £125,000.