Denis Savill, the art dealer who for many years was virtually king of the Australian art market before closing his Paddington gallery and retiring in 2016, was again in buying mood last week during a visit to his birthplace, New Zealand.

The peripatetic dealer was prominent at Auckland's International Art Centre on April 10 among a typically reserved Kiwi audience, shouting out bids on several lots at a sale that included nine pictures from the collection of opera doyen Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

Among his targets was Lloyd Rees's Solitude from 1978, a 92cm by 123cm canvas he had sold some years before and which had been on long-term loan from the singer to the Auckland Art Gallery. Apparently a Sydney Harbour scene, though with no identifiable landmarks, Savill secured it for just over the lower estimate, or $NZ110,675 ($104,450) including the auctioneer's 16.5 per cent buyer's premium.

The big drawcard among Dame Kiri's paintings were three works by perhaps New Zealand's best known artist, Charles Frederick Goldie – meticulous portraits of tattooed Maori chieftains and elders dating from around the 1940s. Goldie, the son of an Auckland mayor, studied art in Europe in the 1890s but apart from a brief sojourn in Australia in the 1920s spent most of his life in New Zealand.

But while Goldie's prices have broken the million dollar barrier – the record is Noble Relic of a Noble Race, sold for $NZ1.34 million at the International Art Centre in April 2016 – the results here were relatively subdued, with all three falling a little short of their estimates. Nevertheless, Tribal Troubles Tamati Pehiri fetched just under $NZ903,000 including premium, Tei Hei, a Chieftainess of the Nhati Raukawa $NZ582,000 while Wharekauri Tahuna, estimated at up to $NZ1 million, did not sell.

But it wasn't the Goldies that drew Savill to his old stamping ground. Under NZ's cultural heritage rules they cannot be taken out of the country – and anyway, Savill is already believed to own at least one.

Of the Australian works on offer, Arthur Boyd's Pulpit Rock with Fire and Black Cockatoo (originally mistakenly catalogued as Wimmera Landscape) from circa 1985 was a drawcard for the veteran dealer, who has long specialised in handling works by Boyd, an old friend. Alas, he was outbid and it went elsewhere for a hefty $NZ279,600.

From a private Christchurch collection came another Boyd in slightly more muted hues, Fishing on the Shoalhaven with Dog and White Cockatoo. Sold around mid-estimate at $NZ117,665, it was consigned from a private Christchurch collection and had been obtained direct from the artist.

And if Savill thought the Boyds were a bit rich he was also outbid on Margaret Olley's Still Life, which went for $NZ74,560 – way above its $NZ25,000 to $NZ35,000 pre-sale estimate.

Among the mixed vendor offerings, the Sydney dealer also bought the unusual seven-sheet (16cm by 186cm) watercolour panorama New York Harbour, 1852, by New Zealand politician William Fox, paying $NZ20,970. Fox, who served as premier four times, was also a noted sketcher, explorer and adventurer. Together with British politician and colonial figure Edward Wakefield, he pressed for self-rule and a constitution for New Zealand.

Savill says he would have paid up to$NZ70,000 for this work, which suggests he has in mind a destination for it – perhaps in a public collection. It seems its modest price and its subject matter mean it would not be caught by export restrictions.

The sole Aboriginal work, Uta Uta Tjangala's Untitled from the Dame Kiri collection, made $NZ49,513.

Among a sprinkling of other Australian art William Piguenit's Craycroft River, Tasmania brought $NZ17,184, Ernest Buckmaster's Takaka Valley (South) $NZ4893 and Robert Johnson's Estuary $NZ2330.

Meanwhile Sotheby's Australia is signalling two important New Zealand paintings that are coming up at its Sydney sale on May 16. Charles Goldie's Pokai (the Strategist), signed and dated 1921, comes from a private Sydney collection, having been acquired at the International Art Centre, Auckland, in 1989. Estimate is $300,000 to $400,000. Apparently from the same Sydney collection is Gottfried Lindauer's Maori Girl Learning the Haka, from around 1907, acquired on the same date. A 59cm by 73cm canvas, the estimate is $250,000 to $350,000.

German-born Lindauer came to New Zealand in 1874 and died in 1926. Though a generation earlier than Goldie, the two artists shared a passion for Maori portraits and are regularly exhibited together.