SPL Hand Coloured Rare Book Collection Featuring Norman R Bobins

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[DICKENSON].
Sketches of some of the Various Classes and Tribes inhabiting the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope and the Interior of South Africa.

Alfred Gordon-Brown identified the artist, previously identified only by the initials 'J W' in 1975: 'The artist 'J W' who sold small drawings, principally of local types, through the C[ape] T[own] stationers, and whose identity has been the outstanding mystery of Africana pictures, is now shown with reasonable certainty to be not 'J Walker' as was so long supposed, but a J White, probably John.' (A Gordon-Brown, Pictorial Africana, Cape Town and Rotterdam, 1975, p.240). The artist's identity was revealed when a folder of his drawings titled 'A collection of characteristic 24 sketches by J. White Esq., Cape of Good Hope' came up for sale at auction in Gloucester in the early 1970s, the drawings now in the MuseumAfrica, Johannesburg.

Published
London: W. Robert and Lowes Dickenson, 1851.
References
S.A. Bibl. Vol IV, p.220; not in Abbey (BUT MAYBE Vol 1 340?) Bobins 1108.
Plates
40
Binding/Size
M=4to
Value
25001-100000
Published
London: W. Robert and Lowes Dickenson, 1851.
Ref
5166

4to, frontispiece, and 42 original watercolour plates, these with pencil hatching in foregrounds, some with penciled captions, with typed descriptive index, watercolours preserved in plastic slipcases, bound in modern blue calf gilt to upper board, spine beautiful gilt inner dentelles, etc. "These watercolours are from the talented pencil of a gentleman many years resident at the Cape and were taken by him from Nature during an Expedition into the Interior." Coloured plates in order: 1. A Hottentot Lighting his Pipe. 2. Hottentot Hunter. 3. A Hottentot Woman with Baby on Back and Bottle in Arms. 4. Hottentot Woman Dancing with Bottle in Hand. 5. A Hottentot Dandy. 6. A Hottentot. 7. Bechuana Warrior. Batclapi. 8. Fingoo. 9. Kafir Woman with Parasol. 10. Kafir Woman. 11. Bechuana Woman. Barolong. 12. Bechuana Man (Barolong). 13. Kafir Riding Ox. 14. Kafir Man. 15. Hottentot Man. 16. Colonial Hottentot Woman. 17. "Koa Loop" (A Portrait). 18. Kafir Lady. 19. Kafir Warrior. 20. A Malay Beggar. 21. Malay Fisherman. 22. Vegetable Boy. 23. Malay Woman - Elderly Woman in a Doek. 24. Cape Town Lady'd Maid. 25. A Malay Shopkeeper. 26. Coolie - Mosambique. 27. A Negro Fish Hawker. 28. Hottentot Woman. 29. Ox Wagon - 7 Span of Oxen - with touleier - at the back of Table Mountain. 30. Bechuana Warrior. Mantatee. 31. Bechuana Woman (Mantatee) playing on the Jomoo. 32. Horse Wagon on Rondebosch Common. 33. Zola Woman. 34. Zoola. 35. Fingoo Woman. 36. Zoola Warrior Chief. 37. Bushman. 38. Cape Mounted Rifleman. 39. Zola Lady - Mother of a Jown. 40. Seated Woman Vendor.