Questions over ‘Goldie’ as painting disappears from sale
Friday, 17 July 2026
A painting labelled a fake by an art expert, and previously pulled from the market by a prestigious auction house, has once again resurfaced for sale.
Or has it?
Advertised by New Zealand Art Broker as a “comprehensively authenticated” and “previously unrecognised” Charles Frederick Goldie portrait, Lost in Thought, Ngāheke, An Arawa Chieftain (1917) depicts a high-ranking chieftain and priest of the Tuhourangi Ngāheke tribe of Te Arawa.
NZ Art Broker said in a press release earlier this week that the painting is said to have originally been exhibited in Christchurch in 1917 before it disappeared from public records.
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In 2020, it was purchased from an estate in Australia, and NZ Art Broker director Jen McBride said it had undergone five years of detailed research, conservation, and expert analysis.
“Previously unrecorded Goldie paintings seldom emerge, making discoveries of this nature exceptionally rare.”
It was due to be listed for auction on July 19.
By Thursday, however, the listing had been removed from the Christchurch company's website. McBride has been approached for comment.
Australian auction house Gibson’s sold what appears to be the painting as Portrait of a Maori Chief 1917 for A$10,000 in 2020.
Goldie's 1938 painting Thoughts of a Tohunga sold for more than $3.7 million in 2024.
On Thursday, Dunbar Sloane said his auction house had pulled its own 2024 listing after he inspected the painting in person.
“It came in to us and was photographed from Wellington, but when it came up to Auckland for me to authenticate I wasn’t happy with it.
“I said ‘let’s pull it, we’re not going to sell it’ so it was withdrawn.”
He said the consequences of getting it wrong were too significant to risk ‒ both in matters of money and reputation.
“If we put it on the market and say it’s by Goldie then we’re liable. If it comes back and it's proved beyond doubt it's not, then our neck is on the line.'
But while Sloane is unwilling to express a view on whether the painting is genuine, Goldie expert Phillip Waddington is unequivocal.
“You can spot it a mile away ‒ it’s a fake.”
Waddington, himself a professional painter, has been studying Goldie’s work for more than 50 years. He was an expert witness at the 1985 forgery trial of Karl Sim who was ultimately convicted of passing his own work off as that of Goldie, Frances Hodgkins, Rita Angus and Colin McCahon.
To Waddington, the painting recently advertised as a Goldie is only the crudest of imitations.
“Goldie painted mokos just as they were carved into the skin ‒ like three dimensional tattooing,” he said on Thursday
“These look like they’re just painted on the top with a green felt pen ‒ it’s terrible.”
Waddington said the painting had been attracting scrutiny for decades, pointing to a trail of published references questioning its authenticity.
In 1977, prominent NZ publisher Alister Taylor included the work in his book C.F. Goldie – His Life & Paintings under the heading ‘Paintings of Doubtful Origin’.
Then titled ‘Te Mutu Haranui, Chieftain of the Arawas’, Taylor described its “drawing and handling of paint” as inferior to Goldie's, suggesting it was “perhaps the work of a student”.
The painting had previously sold through McKearney's Auctions in Hastings in May 1975 before being offered again by Kent Prior Auctions in Christchurch the following year.
It also appears in Ian Dougherty's 2019 book A Good Joke: The Life and Crimes of Notorious Art Forger Karl Sim, which states that Sim signed 'C.F. Goldie' on a reproduction that was sold through McKearney's Auctions on May 16, 1975 for $550.
Waddington said that he was speaking out to protect the integrity of one of Aotearoa's greatest artists.
“Why I do it is because this art forger tried to drag the standard of Goldie's work down to himself.
“I hope that if someone ever tried to do that to my work, there'd be someone out there who would do the same for me.“