A powerful painting by landscape tsar Fred Williams is potentially the most expensive of the 81 artworks to go under the gavel in Smith & Singer’s August 23 auction in Sydney. Masons Falls, 1981, is estimated at between $2 million and $3 million.

But the more modest gems of a sale with a total estimate of between $9.8 million and $13.9 million gleam just as brightly as the Williams, and embody the kinds of stories that make art history a rabbit warren of intrigue.