Notes

Frans Oerder arrived in Pretoria from Rotterdam in 1890. He initially struggled for commissions but found great joy trying to catch the Highveld light and painting the landscapes on the outskirts of town. While he painted a number of Boer portraits and interiors, many of his early sitters were black. Through the 1890s, then, in the lead up to the outbreak of war, he created a beautiful and historically important record of the black farmhands, cardplayers, indunas, cattle drivers, drunkards and washerwomen that lived on the fringes of Pretorian society. The current lot is a sensational portrait of the artist’s handsome gardener, made perhaps in the last few months of peace. The solemn man is fixed in three-quarter pose, with the worn rim of his veld hat pulled low. Some light picks up the ridges of his nose and lips, while his smooth ebony skin contrasts sharply with his rumpled cream shirt and khaki jacket. Oerder’s tone and style recalls painters from the Dutch Golden Age, particularly when one considers the sombre palette, proud sitter, and palpable intensity.