Also, if the owner of the painting and the proprietor of the auction house selling it - Mr Rodney Menzies - and or his associates (or whoever it might be) - had wanted to conjure up a fairy godmother for the work and with it the sale before the kiss of death took its toll, few buyers could have given more transparency to the sale than the buyer.
This was the old trooper, Ms Kathie Sutherland, art consultant and the author of a book on the artist.
The bid from Mrs Sutherland was like many of late, one below the low estimate and left there, often signifies some doubt as to whether the lot has been passed in.
Given the work's lack of recent success, the estimate was also a hard ask even at the now reduced sum of $1.1 million to $1.4 million. The $1 million bid was below the estimates but equivalent to $1.227 million when buyers premium was added on as estimates do not include buyers premium.
If the vendor was, as understood, friends of Mr Menzies or Mr Menzies himself – the catalogue does not identify the works in which the house has an interest only the fact that it occasionally has them – the sale should resolve the troubled issue of what is considered to be a major work of art satisfactorily.
The crowded room thought so, as it gave the fall of the hammer a bit of a clap. Old timers naturally would have loved to have found out where it had gone to but no on could come up with an obvious identity for Mrs Sutherland's client.
The subject attracted a bit of nose-twitching showing an odd interest by the artist with a daughter under the shower, who died before her time from an illness.
But many usually good-eyed people agree that as a composition and work of art and career sortie it was a brilliant work.
It was also a gift by Whiteley to his daughter and therefore may not have been intended for public consumption.
When last offered in the rooms at Christie's in August 2003 it failed to sell under the hammer but went for $798,112 almost immediately after to Mr Ronald Coles, the Dural art dealer who has been before the courts on fraud charges relating to multiple sales of the same pictures to different buyers of works for their superannuation funds.
It had subsequently been knocked down for $1.68 million, $1.332 million and its latest price of $1,227 million.
Since the introduction of the resale royalty the work could certainly not stay within a related group of buyers much longer without a five per cent cheque going to the artist's widow Wendy.
Vendors have to start paying this sum every time a work sells, from its second appearance on the market following the now two year old introduction of the act.
The sale was rich in old favourites that had been offered by Menzies Art Brands many times and needed to get a serious push on before artists and their widows started claiming the royalty.
The resale royalty does not apply to works by the colonial and Impressionist artists, now including Arthur Streeton who died 72 years ago, two years more than the maximum for which the legislation applies, the resale act being designed to help living artists or their close family.
A late Streeton of a clunky old iron bridge in Tasmania, (Lot 46 ) confirmed the secondary nature of late works in his oeuvre, despite the push to show him as a conservationist in his old age. It was unsold at $85,000 against a lower estimate of $100,000.
The second Streeton, a French country town (Lot 77 ), made a far more manageable within estimates $42,000.
The top bid of $50,000 bid on Ferntree Gully (Lot 28 ) by Eugene von Guerard, once in the collection of Nevin and Rose Hurst, secured the work. The bid was below the lower estimate of $55,000 to $75,000 but the auctioneer Mr Martin Farrah took the trouble to say "that was a sale of course."
At Menzies in 2010 it had sold for $79,723, at Lawson Menzies in 2011 for $69,000 and in 2012 at Menzies for $84,000 all including buyers premium.
Estimates do not include the 25 per cent buyers premium which goes to the auction house.
Possibly because it is a familiar image – and not because it had been offered too often before as it had not - Henry Gritten's View of Melbourne from the Botanical Garden of 1865 (Lot 29 ) was not quite there.
Variously done with or without a pram in the foreground, the absence of these troubling vehicles in this one did not help.
Still on the market on the other hand as Mr Martin Farrah, the auctioneer said “No” afterwards, was Russell Drysdale's Red Landscape (Lot 35 ) which was taken to $680,000 (IBP) against estimates of $700,000 to $900,000.
This raging red hot outback scene with an Aboriginal perched to the right of it has been offered five times in Menzies' rooms since 2003 making variously $646,250, $1,080,000, $960,000, $812,727 and finally in 2012, $770,7217.
Many of the lots attracted bidding that finished up "not quite there" and there were more than enough straight "passed's" and a few sales just below the lower estimate.
What was left of the crowd (quite a few) gave Mr Farrah a big round of clapping after a brilliantly confident and at times amusing performance in the rostrum.
“We have a very eager vendor,” he said (or should it be joked?) when another of Mr Menzies owner associated items went through.
Arthur Boyd's Death of a Husband (Lot 49 ) was knocked down to buyer 302 for $580,000 which was $20,000 less than the lower estimate.
It had made $447,250, $660,000 $900,000 and $613,620 on previous performances.
John Firth Smith's large Contemplation, (Lot 55 ) from 1987 went to "the worldwide web" (an internet bidder) for the lower estimate of $38,000.
Fine, interesting and or entirely fresh works to the market had no difficulty finding new homes.
Principal among them was Bessie Davidson's large Still Life Interior with Jug (Lot 38 ) which sold for $100,000 ($122,727 IBP) despite the heady estimate of $100,000 to $140,000.
Artists doing well in the primary contemporary market such as Ildico Kovacs, Chris Langlois and Rick Amour did not fare so well, struggling to find buyers. The hammer has traditionally been unkind to recent history, although in the absence of good old works and changes in taste this has changed enormously.
The gallery waiting lists for such works however appear to have shortened.
A long term absence of works by Juan Davila to the market at seductive prices explained the price of $85,909 IBP, which was within estimates, for Gallardo Enriqueta (Buckley's Return) topical as a satire on the detention of immigrants (Lot 32 ) and set a record for the artist. Davila was the painter of Stupid as a Painter, his master work now in the Kerry Stokes collection, better matching his reputation and gallery asking price than the previous $31,200.
It had not seemed so long since David Boyd was all the rage, but his death, which is usually a good career move for an artist, has not helped.
Eight of his gouaches were taken to $28,000 which was $10,000 less than the lower estimate. Like a serious of lots on the night they were called as “NQT.” That is, not quite there.
Modest examples of works by well known overseas artists met a mixed reception, a David Hockney lithograph of his signature swimming pools being as well contested and selling for the same price as the inkjet printed computer drawing of a sailor at Mossgreen the night before.
A posthumous Rodin domestic sculpture The Old Woman joined the NQTs.
