While of course only a small proportion of the collection is on display at any time, those on display in the historic courts are undoubtedly some of the most beloved paintings in the gallery’s holdings.

The fact that a regional Victorian gallery holds an extensive collection of work by French masters is perhaps one of the most surprising elements within the gallery’s collecting history.

Dr James Andrew Neptune Scott was one of the gallery’s significant benefactors of the mid-20th century.

Arriving in Bendigo in 1916, he opened a private hospital and surgery at Lister House in Rowan Street, the income from which enabled him to indulge his passions for travelling abroad and collecting works of art.

He made more than 20 trips overseas and concentrated exclusively on collecting 19th century French paintings.

On his death in 1944, he bequeathed 12 French paintings from his collection, as selected by his wife, to the gallery.

The remainder of the Scott collection was donated to the gallery by Mrs GC Scott in 1947, totalling 40 works including the original 12.

Furthermore, in 1953, on the death of Mrs Scott, the assets of the estate became available to the gallery.

While the gallery appreciated and lauded this wonderful collection, there was some question as to the authenticity and provenance of the French works.

The trouble was that nobody knew if the paintings were genuine.

It seemed to be that some people found incredible the existence in provincial Victoria of a collection of genuine French 19th century paintings by such masters.

To put an end to this damaging speculation, in the 1980s, then Director, Doug Hall, arranged for the collection to be assessed.

In 1984 French painting expert from The Louvre, Madame Hélène Toussaint, visited Bendigo Art Gallery, for the sole purpose of assessing this collection.

Owing to limited resources paintings were transported to the hospital for x-ray examination (of course this was well before the wonderful scientific expertise of 21^st century conservation labs).

She found that, of the 40 works donated by Scott, four were forgeries and a small number had been falsely attributed.

Excitingly, several works proved to be even more significant than first thought.

These were namely works by Eugène Isabey, Alfred Sisley and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.

These works remain some of the best loved of the gallery’s collection and can be seen in historic Bolton Court.

Interested to know more about the treasures in the gallery’s collection?

Free guided tours of the collection are available at 2pm daily.

The gallery is open from 10am to 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday.