Strauss & co - 22 October 2012, Cape Town

THE COLONIAL ROOM 363 Isaac Louis DREGE SOUTH AFRICAN 1853-1921 Thirty botanical watercolours depicting indigenous plants in and around Port Elizabeth variously dated between 1901 and 1912, from Volume V each inscribed with the family, genus and species, the date and place recorded, and with the distinctive features each approximately 30 by 20cm, framed (30) R9 000 – 12 000 Isaac Louis Drège was born in Paarl, the son of Carl Friedrich Drège, a German apothecary, naturalist and traveller who travelled extensively into various parts of South Africa with his brother, Franz, collecting plants and zoological and ethnological specimens. He trained as an apothecary and settled in Port Elizabeth, collecting plants in the Albany, Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth districts, particularly at Aloes, north of Port Elizabeth. He published ‘A preliminary list of flowering plants, ferns and fern allies found in the Port Elizabeth District’ in South African Journal of Science, 1912: pp. 151-175 (1913). He corresponded with Schonland and Burtt Davy and sent living plants to Kew in the United Kingdom. Volumes I and II were donated to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, UK in 2002. cf. Mary Gunn & LEW Codd , Botanical Exploration of Southern Africa, Balkema, Cape Town, 1981, page 137 105