More than a million for Goldie portrait

The top price ever paid for a New Zealand painting was reached last night with the sale of a Goldie portrait of a Maori chief.

A Noble Relic of a Noble Race, painted by New Zealand artist Charles Frederick Goldie in 1941, sold for $1.38 million at an auction for important and rare art last night.

The International Art Centre in Parnell, which auctioned the work, had an estimate of between $800,000 and $1.2 million on it.

Goldie painted the portrait – of one of his favourite male subjects, Arawa chief Wharekauri Tahuna – six years before he died aged 76, making it the last major artwork he painted.

The buyer is an unknown private collector, but International Art Centre director Richard Thomson says it will probably stay in the country.

As a work of national significance, it is likely to need special approval under the Protected Objects Act 1975 to be taken out of New Zealand.

Mr Thomson says the work attracted great interest from potential buyers.

 “It is a powerful yet very sensitive portrayal of an old and very revered Maori chief. It shows the technical finesse Goldie perfected over 60 years of painting which began in his teens when as a 16-year-old he won an award from the Society of Arts for his first oil painting.

“It is one of the true national treasures of the art world and would probably rank as one of the finest works ever produced in the history of New Zealand art.”

The painting – which is still in its original frame, thought to have been made by Goldie’s father – was last sold in 2008 to an anonymous buyer for $416,000.

A 1931 drawing of Anaha Te Rahui of Ngati Tarawhai, done by Goldie for his wife Olive, also sold at the auction for $90,000, the highest price paid for a Goldie drawing. It had been expected to sell for $25,000.

Formerly the highest price paid for a Goldie was $732,500 in 2013, for Goldie’s earliest Maori portrait, Kawhena, Johnny Coffin.

In 2010, Forty Winks reached $573,000, after being sold by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

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