DOI Heft:
No. 242 (May 1913)
DOI Artikel:Wood, T. Martin: The gift of Dutch pictures to South Africa
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21160#0294
Dutch Pictures for South Africa
"A MUSICAL PARTY BY DIRK HALS
THE GIFT OF DUTCH PIC- associations into the brand new world that every-
TURES TO SOUTH AFRICA where surrounded them. It was at this moment
BY T MARTIN WOOD ^aS^' -^"uSn received the inspiration of centring
in Cape Town a collection of the art in which
The story of the Max Michaelis gift to Cape Dutchman and Englishman had displayed their
Town of nearly fifty paintings of the Dutch school affinity of temperament and character—the one as
of the seventeenth century, as a nucleus for the artist and the other as patron ; for it was always the
foundation of a National Gallery of South Africa, English who, outside of Holland, were the great
reads as under. patrons of Dutch art.
In 1910 Sir Hugh Lane went out to Johannes- Having conceived the value of such a gift, as an
burg to assist at the foundation of the Johannesburg influence in new South Africa, any other organiser
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art with a collection would probably have endeavoured to enlist sym-
of modern paintings presented to the city by a pathy with his scheme whilst it was yet tangible,
group of people having the interests of modern and, as often happens in such cases, an infinite
South Africa at heart. It saddened him to see period of time might have elapsed before anything
that even in Cape Town, which had been the resulted. Sir Hugh, however, went to work in
centre of the drama of the development of the a characteristically practical way, first making a
Colony, the links with those whose enterprise laid small ideal collection, and then intimating that
the foundations of the Dominion had almost it was in existence for whomsoever would come
disappeared. Few^architectural features remained forward to make a gift of it to South Africa;
of Old Cape Town carrying the poetry of their its acquisition to be practically at cost price.
271
"A MUSICAL PARTY BY DIRK HALS
THE GIFT OF DUTCH PIC- associations into the brand new world that every-
TURES TO SOUTH AFRICA where surrounded them. It was at this moment
BY T MARTIN WOOD ^aS^' -^"uSn received the inspiration of centring
in Cape Town a collection of the art in which
The story of the Max Michaelis gift to Cape Dutchman and Englishman had displayed their
Town of nearly fifty paintings of the Dutch school affinity of temperament and character—the one as
of the seventeenth century, as a nucleus for the artist and the other as patron ; for it was always the
foundation of a National Gallery of South Africa, English who, outside of Holland, were the great
reads as under. patrons of Dutch art.
In 1910 Sir Hugh Lane went out to Johannes- Having conceived the value of such a gift, as an
burg to assist at the foundation of the Johannesburg influence in new South Africa, any other organiser
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art with a collection would probably have endeavoured to enlist sym-
of modern paintings presented to the city by a pathy with his scheme whilst it was yet tangible,
group of people having the interests of modern and, as often happens in such cases, an infinite
South Africa at heart. It saddened him to see period of time might have elapsed before anything
that even in Cape Town, which had been the resulted. Sir Hugh, however, went to work in
centre of the drama of the development of the a characteristically practical way, first making a
Colony, the links with those whose enterprise laid small ideal collection, and then intimating that
the foundations of the Dominion had almost it was in existence for whomsoever would come
disappeared. Few^architectural features remained forward to make a gift of it to South Africa;
of Old Cape Town carrying the poetry of their its acquisition to be practically at cost price.
271