The late Douglas Badcock was asked to create the oil on board painting of Mt Alfred and a rustic dwelling with Mt Earnslaw in the background, near Glenorchy, by Jeunesse Reid, of the Glenpanel homestead on Ladies Mile, Queenstown, in 1965.
After the flower show, it was displayed in the billiard room at Glenpanel, but the intention to frame it was not fulfilled. The family sold Glenpanel in 1976 and the painting was packed away.
Arrowtown Gallery owner Simon Beadle said he was asked by the family to value a few paintings before they left for Australia about a year ago.
"I saw it behind a couch in three pieces and I said, `That's a Badcock and too good to be stuck behind a sofa.'"I was excited. I love Badcock's paintings of the era of the 1960s, for his lovely, free-flowing style."
Mr Beadle seamlessly glued the unsigned pieces back together then carefully touched up, revarnished and framed the piece for display and sale in the Arrowtown Gallery.
The painting measures about 2m by 1m. It features an unusual shade for the sky and some artistic licence with geographical scale, he said.
"I think it would have been done reasonably quicker than his commissioned work, but a lot of his paintings were this way, with bold brush strokes.
"This is just a wee bit more free-flowing, in an expressionist style."
Badcock was born in Balclutha in 1922 and eventually made Queenstown, then Speargrass Flat, near Arrowtown, his home, with wife Bonnie and their four children.
Their three sons became artists in their own right. The couple moved to Clyde before the end of the century and he died in 2009 after she died in 2001.
Badcock won first prize in the Kelliher Art competition in 1965 and wrote three books. He preferred to paint landscapes in oils on site and had a reputation for selling out exhibitions.
His paintings grace the collections of Queen Elizabeth II and the King of Thailand.
