KEY POINTS:
A rare Gallipoli painting by New Zealand war artist Horace Moore-Jones fetched $110,000 at an auction in Auckland tonight.
The painting, titled Simpson and His Donkey, was put up for auction by a family who were given the painting personally by Moore-Jones before he died in 1922.
It was expected to fetch up to $120,000 at the Webb's auction.
There are believed to be five Simpson and His Donkey paintings. All depict a man leading a donkey carrying a badly wounded soldier along a treacherous hillside track at Gallipoli in 1915, and were painted from a photograph when Moore-Jones returned to New Zealand after WW1.
John Simpson Kirkpatrick was with the Australian forces at Gallipoli and became a legend for his heroic effort in ignoring sniper and artillery fire as he brought the wounded on his donkey, Murphy, down a dangerous path to the beach until he was killed.
However, some New Zealand historians have claimed the man leading the injured soldier was actually New Zealand Field Ambulance medic Dick Henderson, who replaced Kirkpatrick at Gallipoli after he was killed by enemy fire in 1915.
- NZPA
