R500,000 - R700,000
Thomas Baines (British/South African 1820 - 1875) HUNTING ZEBRA AND ELAND
plaque adhered to frame bears artist's name and title; Pieter Wenning Gallery label adhered to reverse
oil on canvas
46 by 66cm; 69 by 88,5 by 5cm including frame
PROVENANCE
Lot 211, Sotheby Parke Bernet South Africa, Johannesburg, 25 September 1973
This oil painting is based on a preparatory watercolour painted by Baines on Sunday 14 September 1862.
The watercolour is inscribed with the following:
'Mountain Zebras one of them crippled by myself and run down by Kanoa and my Makalaka guide Mangabba and the other wounded by John Lang and killed by myself, the bullet passing through his tail and lodging in the breast and my shot breaking her shoulder - Eland escaping - in a kloof of a tributary of the Mahelwe (?) south of the Zambesi River - I believe on comparing notes these were Quaggas of the new variety'
This watercolour is in the collection of Museum Africa in Johannesburg.
In the Natural History Museum in London is a pencil sketch of the same subject inscribed with the following:
'Mountain Zebra / Mare – First wounded by John Laing ? and killed by myself. My first bullet exactly splitting the tail and passing forward into the chest and my next breaking its shoulder. The stallion, the shoulder of which I had broken just before was run down by Kanoa and my Makalaka guide Mangabba and cut up while I was sketching this - In a rugged Kloof of a tributary of the [Malulose?] South of the Zambesi River Sunday Septr 14 1862. Work of absolute necessity as more than thirty people were depending on us for food and tonight they are contented and happy - T Baines The mare had previously been bitten by some wild beast. I believe on comparing notes with Chapman that this is also a specimen of the full striped Quagga such as are here previously shot and sketched we suppose it to be a new variety intermediate between E Burchelli / & E montanus'
With grateful thanks to Michael Stevenson for his assistance in researching and cataloguing this work.
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