Painting by New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins worth $100,000 goes undiscovered for years

It was when Cantus posted a picture of the work on his blog and someone contacted him to say they thought it was a Hodgkins that he attempted to verify the claim.

The work was verified during the episode by Kiwi Mary Kisler, who is the foremost expert on the painter.

“I emphatically think it is by Frances Hodgkins,” she told the programme.

The art historian and curator, who joined the programme via video call from Auckland, said she wondered if the painting was a lost artwork of Hodgkins’ called October Landscape.

Art expert Philip Mould, who co-presents the show, said Kisler’s verification justified the £40,000 to £50,000 valuation.

On Facebook, Mould posted the “entirely overlooked landscape is in fact a masterwork by the fascinating New Zealand-born modernist Frances Hodgkins”.

Despite the hefty price tag, Cantus said he did not intend to sell the piece, but rather hang it up in his home.

“I don’t have any idea where I’m going to put it but I’ll find a space somewhere.”

Another painting was on the reverse of the artwork, which Cantus believed was also a Hodgkins.

In 2016 two of Hodgkins’ oil paintings, Ibiza and River Boats, sold for nearly half a million dollars at an auction in Auckland.

Hodgkins spent most of her working life in the UK and across Europe.

Her work, which was often abstract and boldly coloured, earned her a reputation as one of Britain’s great modernists.

Born in Dunedin in 1869, she studied at the Dunedin School of Art before leaving to travel Europe in 1901.

In 1903, Hodgkins’ watercolour Fatima became the first work by a New Zealander to be hung at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

After a brief return to New Zealand, she went back to the UK, where she continued to paint, hold shows and teach art.

Hodgkins was working up until her death in Dorset, England, in 1947.