Strauss & co - 26 - 28 July 2020, Online

184 PROPERTY OF A PRETORIA COLLECTOR 413 Anton vanWouw SOUTH AFRICAN 1862–1945 The Scout signed, inscribed ‘SA’and bears the foundry mark bronze with a brown patina on a wooden base; cast by the Massa foundry, Rome height: 24 cm including base; length: 66 cm; width: 35 cm R900 000 – 1 200 000 LITERATURE AE Duffey (2008) Anton van Wouw: The Smaller Works , Pretoria: Protea Book House, another cast from the edition illustrated in colour on pages 84 and 85. J Ernst (2006) Anton van Wouw: ‘n Biografie, Vanderbijilpark: Corals Publishers, another cast from the edition illustrated on page 77. University of Pretoria (1981) Anton van Wouw 1862–1945 en die Van Wouwhuis , Pretoria: Butterworth and Co, another cast from the edition illustrated on page 30, plate A26. Anton van Wouw, the Dutch-trained master sculptor, who had settled in the Transvaal by 1890, turned his full attention to a body of small-scale bronzes from 1907. Backed at the time by an investment syndicate, and working from a studio in Sivewright Avenue in Johannesburg, the artist modelled a number of stirring and beautiful Boer and African figures which remain some of his most popular creations. He drew heavily and sympathetically on Boer War imagery in particular, conceiving iconic sculptures such as Slegte Nuus (1907), Die Noitjie van die Onderveld (1907) and Paul Kruger in Exile (1907). The present lot, The Scout , is part of this group, although it was likely produced a little later, certainly between 1908 and 1910. The earliest description of the work, accompanied by a photograph, appeared in The State in June 1910, with the reviewer marvelling at how the artist caught ‘the almost painful eagerness of the eyes’. In this compelling study in suspense, Van Wouw shows a Boer guerrilla fighter on patrol, peering over a rocky edge, his