Strauss & co - 12 November 2012, Johannesburg

88 161 Thomas BAINES south african 1820–1875 Scenery and Wild Animals in South East Africa photographed by Kisch of Durban Natal and Bruton of Port Elizabeth from oil paintings by J.T. Baines The album contains 47 original photographs and one original watercolour each with a detailed description in the artist’s hand below the photograph. Also included is a portrait photograph of the artist. The album contains two contemporary accounts of the paintings, one from the Natal Colonist November 17th 1874 and two printed poems by ‘Timothy Touch ‘Em Off Poet Unlaureate’. These two poems, titled An Adventure in Africa and Song of the Times are, according to Jane Carruthers, the work of Thomas Baines and have annotations by him relating to paintings 14 and 25 in the album. The album dates from 1874, the year before Baines died in Durban. Many of the works illustrated were commissions which Baines received in the latter years of his life. The Hon. Guy Dawnay met Baines in Natal and commissioned fifteen paintings between 1872 and 1874. The majority of these paintings were sold at Christie’s in London in 1984 and 1992. Another commission he received was from Edmund Bryon who met Baines in 1873. He published an account of his travels entitled What we did in South Africa in 1873 . The manuscript is in a private collection in Johannesburg and varies from the printed version. The last years of Baines’ life were difficult. Arnold and Carruthers in The Life and Work of Thomas Baines , Fernwood Press, 1995, state ‘when the Goldfields Company failed leaving Baines with heavy debts, he raised funds by giving lectures in the Grey Institute in Port Elizabeth….’ It is possible that this album might have been a draft for a book that Baines intended to publish to help pay off some of his debts. The use of photographs would have been a way of reducing the cost of publishing the book. R80 000–120 000 provenance The album bears an inscription which reads ‘This is the property of Mrs J. Crozier Richards, 2 Somerset St. Grahamstown’. There is also the name L. Crozier Richards inscribed in the book.