The works, Provenance and In the Val d’Aosta Switzerland, will be up for sale on Wednesday October 10 at Armitage Auctions from 9.30am. 

Armitage Auctions auctioneer Neil O’Brien said it wasn’t just the artist’s name that made these works particularly valuable.  

“Pieces like this are very rare,” he said.  

“John Glovers are continually being unearthed, but most of them are watercolours, some are sketches, and a lot of them are attributed to John Glover, but they’re not signed.

“To get two oil paintings by him with his signature, in this sort of condition, is very rare.”

The paintings came to the auction house through a confidential deceased estate, and are now visible to the public after 30 years in storage. 

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One of the paintings bears a personal touch from its creator. 

“He’s got his signature but then also in his handwriting he’s got the date, and also he makes mention of Charles Leak, from who he bought some new paint to use – Charles Leak was from Campbell Town,” said Mr O’Brien. 

The year the paintings were created, 1840, also adds to their significance.

“His eyesight started to cease around 1841, so these would have been two of the last substantial works that he painted in his lifetime,” said Mr O’Brien. 

Both paintings show scenes from Europe, and are based on sketches drawn by Mr Glover during a tour of parts of the continent around 1820. 

However, they were brought to life in oils in Tasmania in 1840, after the artist made his residence in the state ten years earlier.

It was during this decade that Glover’s reputation as ‘the father of Australian landscape painting’ was set, as he mastered the uniquely Australian colour palette in his way his contemporaries were not able to grasp. 

Provenance and In the Val d’Aosta Switzerland will only be sold as a pair. 

“We didn’t want to split them, and the executors of the estate felt exactly the same,” said Mr O’Brien. 

They will be a part of Armitage Auctions biggest event of the year, with five Michael McWilliam artworks, a Haughton Forrest, and a range of antique furniture and collectibles. 

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