Ms Diggins took a big punt on the good size (46 by 76 cm) oil painting when it was offered by a Stockholm auction house on June 6 paying well over the estimates to secure it for 1.1225 kroner equal then to $A194,000.
The anonymous vendor said to be from a Swedish shipping family was disappointed that the work, then provisionally titled Shipwreck off an Australian Coast was not by a famous Russian seascape painter as previously believed.
Ms Diggins was foxed by the date of 1864 originally offered as a reading of the date on the canvas. A closer inspection showed it to be 1854. Further research by scholar Ms Ruth Pullin suggested that the work was almost certainly that of the present title offered in a public lottery of Von Guerard's work at the Mechanics Institute in Melbourne in February 1855.
It appears to be one of only four maritime paintings done by von Guerard and possibly an important record of Australian art.
The painting sporting a new frame is now priced at $475,000 which Ms Diggins considers far from outlandish given the detail and drama of the painting.
"There appear to be more figures in it than von Guerard's View of Geelong which set an Australian art auction record of $1.96 million in 1996," she points out.
The shipwreck is thought to be the Meridian which ran aground on the notorious rocky coast of Amsterdam Island, mid way between the coast of Western Australia and South Africa, in 1853. Only three passengers were lost from the crowded ship which had set sail from Gravesend Dock for Sydney.
How the work found its way to Sweden is a mystery. Possibly an old sea captain bought it and took it home. That is said to be the story of the painting Attention Company by the American artist William Harnett (1848-1892) that came to light in Tasmania many years ago and was one of the great finds of all time offered up by the Australian saleroom.
The latest find will give great heart to the mostly despondent traders who haunt the world's salerooms in the hope of discovering a underrated art work. It was secured despite modern communications and the Internet which meant its impending auction was no secret in the art trade.
This belief has also been enhanced by the sale on July 3 at Christies in London of four altar piece panels for the equivalent of $181,000. The panels had sold in March for $30,000 at a suburban Melbourne auction.
