The work is now catalogued as part of the Turnbull's collection as that of Charles Decimus Barraud who painted 10 times as many pictures as Gilfillan, most of them later, if the frequency of their appearance in the saleroom is any guide.
The Australian Art Sales Digest records 216 of Barraud's works passing through the saleroom since the early 1970s. Those by Gilfillan sold over the same period total 13.
This kind of scholarly-dealer confusion explains why many buyers feel safer with contemporary art.
A similar readjustment of attribution would deeply surprise if it had to be made for another piece of Kiwiana that has now been consigned to Sotheby's Australia's Fine Asian, Australian and European Arts and Design auction to be held in Sydney on April 15.
The consignment is a silver medal slightly larger than a 50 cent coin presented by Governor Philip King of NSW to Te Pahi, a New Zealand Maori chief who visited Sydney in 1806. The work is impressively provenanced, widely published and has lots of serious research behind it.
The leading and independent historical medal specialist Leslie J Carlisle endorsed it in 1998.
While a Gilfillan of the vintage ascribed would have been a handsome addition to New Zealand's early art heritage, the medal's place appears to be firmly established as part of the material culture of both sides of the Tasman.
That, of course, is recognised in the estimates of $300,000 to $500,000.
Despite the spin from Christie's London accompanying its launch, the estimates on the watercolour of £30,000 to £50,000 suggested a degree of uncertainty about its attribution.
But the Travel & Exploration sales specialist at Christie's Nicholas Lambourn asked as the sale drew closer, “If it is not by Gilfillan, who else could it be by?”.
Ms Marian Minson, the curator, Drawings, Paintings and Prints at the Alexander Turnbull Library, to whom Lambourn sent us was quoted in the catalogue as saying there were some “compositionally similar” works by Gilfillan around in its collection.
But that was the limit of any endorsement. Christie's gave the earliest date as late 1844 as it showed the spire, built that year, of Christ Church Cathedral visible in the distance. This was quite an early date for New Zealand's early contact.
Gilfillan's wife and daughter were killed by a Maori attack on the family farm in 1847, after which the artist left for Australia, reducing the time frame during which the work might have been produced.
It could have been done later of course, worked up in the studio in Australia or from memory, but this is not how water colourists tend to work.
Ms Minson told the Australian Art Sales Digest that topographical features of the river and the artist's brushwork made it clear that it was not by Gilfillan or painted at that time. The watercolour went somewhat automatically to the Turnbull when the library had become convinced of its now new attribution.
The library has the definitive holding of Barraud's works largely through an artist bequest. The library was able to make the purchase for around the middle of the estimates after its buyer at the auction was unable to come forward with the money for it.
The episode highlights the dangers of spin endemic in the art world, especially prior to auctions.
It is no stranger to auctions of New Zealand material as the present writer found in 1978 when covering an auction of a supposed original John Clevely watercolour of the death of Captain Cook.
It was not to be the last time coloured-in copies of a celebrated engraving were mistaken for an original watercolour instead of prints coloured-in.
Christie's cataloguing of the Gilfillan was a triumph of romantic imagination whether or not there is ever a chance of reversion to the original attribution which had some followers early on at another end of the trade.
The settler and the child depicted were “possibly the artist's wife and daughter.”
This gave the watercolour poignancy as it would have been close to where the Gilfillan farm massacre.
There had long been hopes that a specific Gilfillan would surface notably a view of a Maori pa that was the subject of a well known engraving.
Given that Gilfillan died so much earlier than Barraud the new attribution suggests that the impressively large (48 by 70 cm) watercolour is not as important a document of early contact as the other attribution would have implied.
Barraud lived until 1897. His magnum opus, a book of lithographs New Zealand, Graphic and Descriptive, was published in 1877.
Christie's made a lot in the catalogue of this early contact between the two worlds in arguing its relevance in the lengthy catalogue essay.
Having been wooed by Christie's poetic approach to “Gilfillan” a missive from a man named Keats (John – of Sotheby's Australia) – a name associated with poetry of a much higher status - about Sotheby's Australia's announcing this stunning consignment would have set off alarm bells. But I had been at the State Library of NSW checking out the only literature set out in such a minimal matter-of-fact entry in the on line catalogue that was the source of information on the “find” prior to the printed catalogue becoming available.
It has a very succinct but ennobling essay on the medal, engraved to its recipient.
Te Pahi's visit to NSW in 1806 and the presentation of the token abounds in contemporary references.
The chief emerges as humanitarian in a way that is ahead of his time pleading for the lives of two convicts sentenced to death for having stolen some pork.
The sentence would have been fair, he insisted, if the convicts had stolen some iron, implements of which fascinated him. But not pork. Pork just disappeared when eaten. Iron was for ever.
He offered to send back a boatload of the new crop potatoes to pay for the passage back of the culprits.
He also lamented the flogging he had seen given by a whaler to one of his men and urged that this stop.
Te Pahi did not see the finer points of the Eora people of NSW, however, and it was noted how they backed off from him as might have been expected from the sight of his heavy tattoos.
Editor Tim Flannery's The Explorers draws on the various contemporary accounts to show that his seven year visit was a highly diverting and exciting occasion for Sydney as well as a milestone in trade and diplomatic relations with a neighbour.
The source of the medal is given by Sotheby's Australia as “private collection NSW.”
Buyers should check out its position as far as Australia's heritage laws are concerned as there are also laws governing these.
With so much milk money around on both sides of the Continent, this lot could froth up in a way the last bit of cream from New Zealand failed to. Auctioneers are the baristas of spin who just love conjuring up the heritage card which in this case can be played two ways to competing buyers.
Based on the estimate, the price will be a lot of money for a small piece of silver, however. A buyer would need a magnifying glass in front of it to mount it and show how patriotic they were.
