Strauss & co - 11 November 2013, Johannesburg

134 202 Adolph Stephan Friedrich JENTSCH south african 1888–1977 S.W. Afrika signed with the artist’s initials and dated 1944; signed twice, inscribed with the title and ‘113’twice on the stretcher oil on canvas 69 by 99 cm R400 000–600 000 provenance The Olga Levinson Collection At the time of Adolph Jentsch’s Pretoria Art Museum Retrospective exhibition (1970), Riena van Graan, assistant curator at the museum wrote: ‘I think the great value of Jentsch as an artist lies in that he is the only artist who tackled the problem of the homogenous blue cloudless sky above a landscape with the veld full of bushes and veld shrubs consequently full of turbulent elements. Pierneef who sought the decorative quality in the landscape, abridged the problem of discord in the painting by means of a cloudy sky. But this smooth blue sky of Jentsch’s does not divide the painting in two, it rather contributes to the grandeur and infinity and strongly emphasises the third dimension of the landscape over which it stretches. It is but one of the reasons why it may be said that Jentsch perhaps more than Pierneef penetrated to the character of the landscape and laid bare it’s innermost nature.’ This landscape has been identified as a view from Vrede, Adrian Esterhuizen’s farm on the edge of the desert sands of the Sperregebiet, the forbidden diamond area.