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A Goldie painting owned by the family of a prominent lawyer who defended the only woman executed in New Zealand is about to go on the market and could sell for well over $200,000.
The signed and dated oil on canvas, A Centenarian, by Charles Goldie featured Kapi Kapi, an Arawa chieftainess and was painted by Goldie in 1915, the year it was brought by Dunedin lawyer Alfred Hanlon who was later to become a King's Counsel.
It had never been on the market since it was bought, giving it a flawless provenance which was very important in the art world, said Richard Thomson from the International Art Centre in Parnell, Auckland.
Kapi Kapi, who died aged 102 in 1902, was one of Goldie's favourite subjects. He painted her at least 22 times and a similar painting of her which had also never been on the market, sold in 2008 for $330,000.
Kapi Kapi was renowned for her moku and was believed to be the only Maori woman with a rare spiral nostril tattoo painted by Goldie.
Hanlon died in 1944 and the painting had been in the family ever since, said Mr Thomson. It would be included in a sale of Important, Early and Rare art in Auckland in July.
Hanlon defended the infamous Minnie Dean, the woman who became known as the Winton baby farmer. She took in unwanted babies for payment but was convicted of murdering three of them in June, 1895, after police found the bodies of two babies and a three-year-old boy buried in her garden at Winton, north of Invercargill.
When she was hanged in Invercargill jail, seven weeks after her trial, she took a place in New Zealand legal history as the only woman in New Zealand to be executed, a grim statistic she still holds.
Hanlon, who married Polly Hudson, daughter of the founder of Hudson biscuits, was considered one of the most outstanding criminal advocates in New Zealand legal history.
Last year a headstone was installed at Minnie Dean's grave at the old Winton cemetery, 94 years after she was hanged and buried.
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