A painting with a history almost as intriguing as Christopher Aubrey himself has been unearthed in the tiny North Taranaki settlement of Tongaporutu. <img src='https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2106/bff51f164d7ff4aa6669.jpeg' .
“He s a bit of a mystery,” Carrick said. “But you can trace his travel through New Zealand and how he was making a living through selling these paintings through newspapers.” He travelled through Dunedin, Oamaru, Timaru, Wellington, Wairarapa before arriving in Taranaki in 1896. “And we know this because we have these paintings,” she said.
SIMON O CONNOR/Stuff
The paintings are of Aubrey’s travels around Taranaki in 1896. Puke Ariki had just seven of the paintings in its collection and had only shown them as one-off pieces. But after lockdown the museum was contacted by a second-hand dealer in Palmerston North who had uncovered two more paintings when going through someone’s estate.