DOI article:
Wood, T. Martin: The gift of Dutch pictures to South Africa
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43452#0282
Dutch Pictures for South Africa
“a musical party”
BY DIRK HALS
The gift of dutch pic-
tures TO SOUTH AFRICA.
BY T. MARTIN WOOD.
The story of the Max Michaelis gift to Cape
Town of nearly fifty paintings of the Dutch school
of the seventeenth century, as a nucleus for the
foundation of a National Gallery of South Africa,
reads as under.
In 1910 Sir Hugh Lane went out to Johannes-
burg to assist at the foundation of the Johannesburg
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art with a collection
of modern paintings presented to the city by a
group of people having the interests of modern
South Africa at heart. It saddened him to see
that even in Cape Town, which had been the
centre of the drama of the development of the
Colony, the links with those whose enterprise laid
the foundations of the Dominion had almost
disappeared. Few architectural features remained
of Old Cape Town carrying the poetry of their
associations into the brand new world that every-
where surrounded them. It was at this moment
that Sir Hugh received the inspiration of centring
in Cape Town a collection of the art in which
Dutchman and Englishman had displayed their
affinity of temperament and character—the one as
artist and the other as patron ; for it was always the
English who, outside of Holland, were the great
patrons of Dutch art.
Having conceived the value of such a gift, as an
influence in new South Africa, any other organiser
would probably have endeavoured to enlist sym-
pathy with his scheme whilst it was yet tangible,
and, as often happens in such cases, an infinite
period of time might have elapsed before anything
resulted. Sir Hugh, however, went to work in
a characteristically practical way, first making a
small ideal collection, and then intimating that
it was in existence for whomsoever would come
forward to make a gift of it to South Africa;
its acquisition to be practically at cost price.
271
“a musical party”
BY DIRK HALS
The gift of dutch pic-
tures TO SOUTH AFRICA.
BY T. MARTIN WOOD.
The story of the Max Michaelis gift to Cape
Town of nearly fifty paintings of the Dutch school
of the seventeenth century, as a nucleus for the
foundation of a National Gallery of South Africa,
reads as under.
In 1910 Sir Hugh Lane went out to Johannes-
burg to assist at the foundation of the Johannesburg
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art with a collection
of modern paintings presented to the city by a
group of people having the interests of modern
South Africa at heart. It saddened him to see
that even in Cape Town, which had been the
centre of the drama of the development of the
Colony, the links with those whose enterprise laid
the foundations of the Dominion had almost
disappeared. Few architectural features remained
of Old Cape Town carrying the poetry of their
associations into the brand new world that every-
where surrounded them. It was at this moment
that Sir Hugh received the inspiration of centring
in Cape Town a collection of the art in which
Dutchman and Englishman had displayed their
affinity of temperament and character—the one as
artist and the other as patron ; for it was always the
English who, outside of Holland, were the great
patrons of Dutch art.
Having conceived the value of such a gift, as an
influence in new South Africa, any other organiser
would probably have endeavoured to enlist sym-
pathy with his scheme whilst it was yet tangible,
and, as often happens in such cases, an infinite
period of time might have elapsed before anything
resulted. Sir Hugh, however, went to work in
a characteristically practical way, first making a
small ideal collection, and then intimating that
it was in existence for whomsoever would come
forward to make a gift of it to South Africa;
its acquisition to be practically at cost price.
271