Rare Goldie pencil drawing among items offered for sale by family member of artist

Charles Goldie's drawing of Maori guide Sophia is up for sale for the first time. Photo / Supplied

A pencil drawing by renowned New Zealand artist Charles Goldie which has never been seen in public will be up for sale for the first time next week.

The drawing of Maori guide Sophia has been in Goldie's family since the artist finished it in 1931 and is being offered for sale by a member of Goldie's family at the International Art Centre's sale of Important and Rare Art in Auckland next week.

Guide Sophia won international acclaim for guiding tourists over the Pink and White Terraces before they were destroyed by the deadly eruption of Mt Tarawera which killed 150 people in 1886. The drawing was done for his mother, Maria Partington, who was 93 when she died seven years later in 1938.

Director Richard Thomson said the drawing of Guide Sophia had never been out of the Goldie family and had never been publicly exhibited.

"This is the first time since Goldie finished it that it has been seen on public display and I don't think that can be said about any other Goldie work of art."

The sale also includes two historic photographs of the artist at work in his studio, two Goldie paintings and other memorabilia, including two certificates of merit awarded to Goldie when he was 13 and 14, and six sepia photographs of his paintings, including one which now hangs in Treaty House, Waitangi.

The pencil drawing of Guide Sophia was expected to bring up to $40,000 and each photograph was expected to bring up to $3500 at the sale on Monday.