DOI article:
Wood, T. Martin: The gift of Dutch pictures to South Africa
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43452#0283
Dutch Pictures for South Africa
The Dominion has thus had the advantage of the
employment of one of the most discriminating
connoisseurs of our time, and the certainty that the
gallery will start with a basis of works of the
first order from which to extend its operations.
In referring to the collection as ideal we especially
have in mind the care which has been taken
to represent the four separate aspects of Dutch
painting in the seventeenth century, as respectively
shown in portraiture, landscape and still-life paint-
ing, and the painting of Interior genre. It is in the
case of the last named only that there is room for
regret that the genius of the Dutch school is
inadequately represented. In portraiture it is repre-
sented among other works by the remarkable
Rembrandt, Portrait of a Young Lady, which
as long ago as 1880 created a sensation by realising
the highest sum that had hitherto been obtained
for a Dutch picture, and by Frans Hals’s Portrait
of a Lady, originally in the Kann collection ; in
still-life by the Still-life of
Barent van der Meer, which
we reproduce in colour,
the Pruit and Still-life by
van Beyeren and the Vase
of Flowers by William van
Aelst. In the hearing of
the writer these have been
described as probably the
best in the world by one
of the few English painters
whose genius is every¬
where acknowledged. And
then in landscape there
are the two beautiful Ruis¬
daels, The Hill of Bentham
and the Mountainous
Landscape, in which land¬
scape art reaches the
supreme level.
It is to be hoped that
the deficiency in the repre¬
sentation of that side of
Dutch art which is ex¬
pressed in Interior genre
will be corrected at the
earliest possible oppor¬
tunity—for it is not merely
a side of Dutch art, it also
explains the whole spirit
of it. The Dutch painters’
conception of portraiture
was that of representing
the individual in the most
intimate association with the realities of his daily
life; their impression of landscape was that of a
view from the window of a living room; and their
presentation of still-life is always as incidental to a
serene drama of domestic life.
The collection to which we are alluding having
been once formed, Sir Hugh Lane’s share in the
matter for the moment ended. It is to Mr. Max
Michaelis that South Africa is indebted for the
seizure of one of those golden opportunities by
which successful schemes go through. It was
from Mr. Michaelis that the cost of the collection
was immediately forthcoming—and a gift unique
in its romantic appropriateness made to the
Dominion of South Africa. When it reaches the
Cape it will be lodged in a building provided
by the Union Government, as a nucleus to further
treasures which men of spirit may present, there
to represent for ever that art in the appreciation of
which the two races whose influence has controlled
“interior of a church”
BY G. VAN HOUCKGEST
272
The Dominion has thus had the advantage of the
employment of one of the most discriminating
connoisseurs of our time, and the certainty that the
gallery will start with a basis of works of the
first order from which to extend its operations.
In referring to the collection as ideal we especially
have in mind the care which has been taken
to represent the four separate aspects of Dutch
painting in the seventeenth century, as respectively
shown in portraiture, landscape and still-life paint-
ing, and the painting of Interior genre. It is in the
case of the last named only that there is room for
regret that the genius of the Dutch school is
inadequately represented. In portraiture it is repre-
sented among other works by the remarkable
Rembrandt, Portrait of a Young Lady, which
as long ago as 1880 created a sensation by realising
the highest sum that had hitherto been obtained
for a Dutch picture, and by Frans Hals’s Portrait
of a Lady, originally in the Kann collection ; in
still-life by the Still-life of
Barent van der Meer, which
we reproduce in colour,
the Pruit and Still-life by
van Beyeren and the Vase
of Flowers by William van
Aelst. In the hearing of
the writer these have been
described as probably the
best in the world by one
of the few English painters
whose genius is every¬
where acknowledged. And
then in landscape there
are the two beautiful Ruis¬
daels, The Hill of Bentham
and the Mountainous
Landscape, in which land¬
scape art reaches the
supreme level.
It is to be hoped that
the deficiency in the repre¬
sentation of that side of
Dutch art which is ex¬
pressed in Interior genre
will be corrected at the
earliest possible oppor¬
tunity—for it is not merely
a side of Dutch art, it also
explains the whole spirit
of it. The Dutch painters’
conception of portraiture
was that of representing
the individual in the most
intimate association with the realities of his daily
life; their impression of landscape was that of a
view from the window of a living room; and their
presentation of still-life is always as incidental to a
serene drama of domestic life.
The collection to which we are alluding having
been once formed, Sir Hugh Lane’s share in the
matter for the moment ended. It is to Mr. Max
Michaelis that South Africa is indebted for the
seizure of one of those golden opportunities by
which successful schemes go through. It was
from Mr. Michaelis that the cost of the collection
was immediately forthcoming—and a gift unique
in its romantic appropriateness made to the
Dominion of South Africa. When it reaches the
Cape it will be lodged in a building provided
by the Union Government, as a nucleus to further
treasures which men of spirit may present, there
to represent for ever that art in the appreciation of
which the two races whose influence has controlled
“interior of a church”
BY G. VAN HOUCKGEST
272