The painting had come into the hands of the exchange, or its precedent companies, as a gift, umpteen years ago, from the Melbourne stockbroker John May who had a Federation "pile" in Heidelberg.
May was even known as the 'Bard of Heidelberg' in reference both to his writings on lawn bowls in The Bulletin, his publication Our Game under the pseudonym the 'Unknown Bowler' and his verse on general topics.
The 67 by 49.6 cm work is one of a series of four painted by Withers, of which two others are also in public galleries. Mining Scene Creswick is in the Ballarat Fine Arts Gallery and The Fossickers is in the National Gallery of Australia, writes Terry Ingram..
The fourth Panning for Gold, at 46 by 30cm is a smaller painting than the two others. It was the cover painting of Bonhams sale of Important Australian Art on November 19 this year.
The sale of this picture for $427,000 including buyers premium, gives some idea of the loss to an art market starved of quality works from this earlier period. The hammer price was the lower estimate of $350,000.
It also may have been lost to the market for good - although de-accessions of more important works are not unknown - as it has not been established definitely who bought it at Bonhams.
The auction house has denied that it was purchased by Mr Stokes but Mr Stokes' offices have declined to confirm or deny it.
Like the other three works it is an historically important art work in many ways, as well as being a quintessential piece of Australiana and could have been bought by a public institution likely to resell it at a future date only in exceptional circumstances..
In 1893 Withers spent several weeks at Creswick in the Victorian gold fields holding classes. Percy Lindsay was among those who took up the classes.
In its post on its website the AGNSW said Seeking for Gold was "a heroic depiction of the Australian worker and landscape."
"It presents two men fossicking for gold in a stream, saturated in brilliant sunlight."
"Each man is using a gold cradle – a box on inclined rockers containing metal sieves, which was moved by hand to process soil, capturing gold in the base of the cradle."
The work may well be the elusive work that escaped auctioneer Mr Tim Goodman and Mr Nick Curtis, now a miner of rare earths through Lynas Corporation in Australia and Malaysia, in 1983, when they picked up Panning for Gold for sale. Mr Curtis, who has a fine arts degree, was then working with Mr Goodman in an arts auction venture out of Sydney's Macquarie Street.
The then elderly owner of Panning for Gold is remembered by Mr Goodman as having indicated that a similar work had gone into circulation from the same family.
Mr Goodman sold Panning for Gold for the then very strong price of $56,000 against keen competition from Melbourne dealer Ms Lauraine Diggins.
Seeking for Gold - Cradling was among 45 works donated this year by the Australian Securities Exchange to the AGNSW and regional galleries around Australia, and by far the most important.
Ms Kristen Kaus, a spokesperson for the ASE, said :"We donated the works because of a redevelopment of our working environment."
"Consequently, given the historical and cultural significance of some of the pieces, we elected to donate them to public galleries, rather than to sell them."
"A number of commissioned portraits of stock exchange chairmen were donated to the National Portrait Gallery."
"Unfortunately, we don’t have the detail about how ASX came to have this particular painting, or many of the other works in our collection.
"We do know that many of the works were originally donated to the state-based Stock Exchanges. When these exchanges consolidated to create ASX, they then came into ASX’s possession."
The AGNSW and Ms Kaus confirmed no application had been made under the Cultural Gifts Program for donation under the scheme which provides for taxation incentives for gifts in kind to approved institutions.
However, the ASX had not ruled this out.
