Notes

Ever idealistic and devout, Paul Kruger, the nineteenth-century frontiersman, soldier and statesman, remains one of the iconic figures of early Boer independence. With his capital and major towns under British control, and Lord Roberts announcing the annexation of the South African Republic, Kruger went into exile in September 1900, sailing from Lourenço Marques to Marseille. He made attempts to drum up

support for the Boer cause in Paris, Cologne, The Hague and Utrecht, before his deteriorating health forced him to settle in Clarens in western Switzerland. He died in July 1904, heart-broken, having penned his final letter to his people of the Transvaal, asking that each ‘seek all that is to be found good and fair in the past’. Three years later Anton van Wouw, working between Pretoria and Johannesburg, imagined the lonely ex-President sitting deep in his armchair, his knees blanketed, and with his Bible, his only comfort, resting open on his lap. The artist kept the old man’s gaze from the pages; Kruger stared above them, either in resignation or resistance. Van Wouw cast the sculpture in two sizes: the current lot is a fine example of the larger version. – AE Duffey

AE Duffey (2008) Anton van Wouw: The Smaller Works, Pretoria: Protea Book House. Another cast from the edition is illustrated on pages 50 and 51.a

Provenance

5th Avenue Auctioneers, Johannesburg, May 2002, lot 104.

Literature

AE Duffey (2008) Anton van Wouw: The Smaller Works, Pretoria: Protea Book House, another cast from the edition illustrated on page 51.

Prof Alex Duffey, Gerard de Kamper and Daniel Mosako (2010) Anton van Wouw (1862-1945), Pretoria: University of Pretoria, published to accompany a retrospective exhibition, another cast from the edition illustrated in colour on page 17.

M.L. Du Toit (1933), Suid-Afrikaanse Kunstenaars: Deel 1 Anton van Wouw, Kaapstad: Nasionale Pers Beperk, another casting illustrated on page 45.