The Government is deliberating about whether to let a mystery buyer take a painting by one of New Zealand's best known historical artists overseas.
The anonymous buyer has applied to take a Charles F Goldie painting offshore but the Ministry of Culture and Heritage may decline the application, Fairfax reported.
It was considering whether laws allowing authorities to block culturally significant artefacts from being taken out of the country should be applied in this instance.
Like the buyer, the identity of the painting and the country it may be taken to are shrouded in secrecy.
The only thing the Ministry of Culture and Heritage would confirm was that the work was not A Noble Relic of a Noble Race, 1941, Goldie's last painting before his death, which sold for a record $1.175 million last April.