Strauss & co - 7 March 2011, Cape Town

223 Jacob Hendrik Pierneef SOUTH AFRICAN 1886-1957 Extensive Landscape Northern Transvaal signed and dated ‘49 oil on canvas 76 by 102cm R10 000 000–15 000 000 PROVENANCE Mr F H Moerdyk, acquired directly from the artist in 1949 Sold: Sotheby’s, South Africa, 19 November 1985, lot 98 Private collection LITERATURE Stephan Welz, Art at Auction in South Africa: 1969-1989 , Johannesburg, 1989, p 111, illustrated in colour Stephan Welz, Art at Auction in South Africa: 1969-1995 , Johannesburg, 1996, p 49 This impressive landscape by Pierneef made auction history in November 1985 when it became the first South African painting to break the hundred-thousand rand mark; selling for R120 000 under the hammer of auctioneer Stephan Welz. It is not difficult to see why. As one of the artist’s most-sought after landscapes, it bears all the hallmarks of his mature style. A typical bushveld scene near Polokwane in Limpopo Province is transformed through the artist’s unique vision. A panoramic view highlights the soaring heights of the blue sky and the phenomenal breadth of the landscape with impressive splendour. With Pierneef’s unfailing logic, he analyses the scene in terms of its underlying structure to accentuate the enduring aspects of nature despite seasonal changes. Trees, pared down to their most elemental forms in this winter scene, are given emphasis through graphic detail. The warm tones of the savannah advance while complementary, cool colours recede into the distance, providing a sense of deep space in a dynamic but essentially stable composition. Above the blue mountain range, cumulus clouds, appearing as puffy shapes in the sky, herald fair weather. Like a catalogue of the horticultural wealth of the area, the trees and plants are faithfully represented and can be easily identified. As Ernst van Jaarsveld, Botanist and Horticulturist at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, points out: The vegetation is savannah, consisting of grassland with tree and shrub species. Trees in this landscape probably represent the wild syringa ( Burkea africana ), huilbos ( Peltophorum africanum ), common hook thorn ( Acacia caffra ), shepherd’s tree or matumi ( Boschia albitrunca ), sickle bush ( Dichrostachys cinerea ) (left foreground), scented thorn ( Acacia nilotica ) and tomboti ( Spirostachys africana ). The large deciduous tree in the left hand foreground is probably the raasblaar or large-fruit bushwillow ( Combretum zeyheri ). The shrubs in the background are probably the magic quarry ( Euclea divinorum ), very commonly represented in the bushveld. The grey grass and flowering pluimblomplakkie ( Kalanchoe paniculata ) with its extended inflorescence (right hand foreground) shows that it was painted during the winter. On the outcrop on the right hand corner is a stunted drought-adapted plant known as the bobbejaanstert ( Xerophyta retinervis ) which is confined to rocky outcrops. To the left of it, below the umbrella thorn or ‘haak-en-steek’ ( Acacia tortilis ) can be seen a stem succulent plant, known as the monteiroi euphorbia ( Euphorbia monteiroi ), a plant well represented throughout the Limpopo Province. i i Ernst van Jaarsveld in an email to Emma Bedford, dated 14 January, 2011. 112