The portrait, (Lot 456 ) to be offered on Sunday, June 20, had spent many years in an eastern suburbs home until it was sent off to be cleaned and restored. When it returned the owners decided they weren’t so keen on the cleaned up picture and packed it off to auction.
The oval image, on a panel, is 22cm by 18cm and in a matching carved and gilded frame which Colin Vickers says is “definitely 19th century if not before”.
His research suggests it may be based on another portrait of Cook, perhaps painted as a centenary memento in 1870. Estimate is $1,000 to $1,500.
The mixed sale also offers an interesting leather-bound book of 52 botanical watercolours (Lot 369 ), mostly American flora, with an inscription dated 1857 or 1867 but no legible artist’s signature.
There’s also been overseas interest in a vase (Lot 1 ) and charger (Lot 5 ) by the 1900s Arts & Crafts English pottery firm Della Robbia.
