A researcher believes she has identified the first European oil paintings completed in Australia and is campaigning for the early depictions of kangaroos to be brought out of obscurity.

Scotland-based social scientist Sue Roff believes the two paintings, thought to have been completed by artist John Lewin between 1800 and 1807, could be as historically significant as George Stubbs' famous Kongouro from New Holland, painted in London in 1772.