Notes

Caldecott painted this work in Stellenbosch where he stayed at the farm Oude Libertas during the last week in September 1927, two years before his death. During his stay he painted a small sketch in oil Sketch Oude Libertas and this larger painting Oak Tree, Oude Libertas which for some time hung in his wife, Florence Zerfi’s house before being exhibited and sold in 1944. J du P Scholtz, an emeritus professor of the University of Cape Town who wrote a book on the artist, describes the painting as having a satisfying composition with depth given to it through the buildings on the right and the low wall on the left.¹

^1.Sotheby's (1984) Important South African, British and Continental Paintings and Sculpture, Silver, Jewellery, Carpets, Furniture and Works of Art, Johannesburg, unpaginated.

Provenance

A J ter Beek, Johannesburg, 1944.

Sotheby's, Johannesburg, 6 November 1984, lot 111.

Exhibited

Argus Gallery, Cape Town, Strat Caldecott, March 1944, cat. no. 24.

South African National Gallery, Cape Town, Strat Caldecott Retrospective, 1986.

Literature

J du P Scholtz (1970) Strat Caldecott, Cape Town: AA Balkema, illustrated on page 81, cat. no. 3 and referenced in text on page 19 and page 66.

Sotheby's (1984) Important South African, British and Continental Paintings and Sculpture, Silver, Jewellery, Carpets, Furniture and Works of Art, Johannesburg, illustrated in colour, unpaginated.

Stephan Welz (1989) Art at Auction in South Africa, Johannesburg: AD Donker, illustrated in colour on page 98.