John Glover's Ben Lomond leads Australian art at $2.7m

Christie's has seen John Glover's Ben Lomond from near Mr Talbot's Property sell for £1.7m ($2.7m), as the auction house offered Australian Art on September 26 in London.

John Glover Ben Lomond Talbot
John Glover is known as the father of Australian landscape painting


The work, its full title being Ben Lomond from near Mr Talbot's Property - For Men Catching Opossums, was the top lot of the auction. It is one of 38 paintings of Tasmania completed by the artist between 1831 and 1835, all of which starred in a selling exhibition in London in 1835.

Frederick Ronald Williams' Lysterfield (1968) saw the second highest bids of the sale, achieving a 65.9% increase on its £500,000 high estimate, selling for £829,875 ($1.3m).

Williams began sketching at Lysterfield in 1965, with the site being just a short journey from his home in Upwey, Victoria. The present work is part of a larger series created in response to the bushfires that had started in February 1968 and continued to autumn, ravaging much of his beloved landscape.

Also selling well was Charles Frederick Goldie's (1870-1947) "An Aristocrat" Atama Parangi, which depicts a chieftain of the Rarawa tribe of Maoris in New Zealand. A captivating portrait completed in 1933, it sold for £313,875 ($504,397), making a 4.6% increase on its £200,000-300,000 valuation.

Goldie's portrait of Rapaka, an Arawa chieftainess, sold for $234,500 in July. Reg Grundy's collection of Australian art sold for $19.2m at Bonhams Sydney in June.

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