The following eight lots come from an album made up by an as yet unidentified French traveller visiting Bourbon (La Réunion), Mauritius and the Cape in the 1820s. Many of the works from the album are from his hand, with the exception of four watercolours of Cape Town by de Meillon (lots 110-113), a sketch of a chalk foundry signed 'Dattiers', sketches of palms and two figure studies probably by the same hand, two bodycolour studies of fish by an Anglo-Chinese artist (all included in lot 115) and a watercolour of a church at Mauritius here attributed to Thuillier (lot 117).

Details

The following eight lots come from an album made up by an as yet unidentified French traveller visiting Bourbon (La Réunion), Mauritius and the Cape in the 1820s. Many of the works from the album are from his hand, with the exception of four watercolours of Cape Town by de Meillon (lots 110-113), a sketch of a chalk foundry signed 'Dattiers', sketches of palms and two figure studies probably by the same hand, two bodycolour studies of fish by an Anglo-Chinese artist (all included in lot 115) and a watercolour of a church at Mauritius here attributed to Thuillier (lot 117).

There are clues to the identity of the Frenchman in the indistinct monogram (possibly HC) which appears on some of the sheets of costume studies (lot 115). His journal (included in the same lot) recording an excursion from Bourbon to Mauritius and the return journey to France via the Cape Colony offers clues to his rank and status: he travels with the retired Governor of Bourbon, M. des Cheffontaines, to Cape Town and at the Cape is invited to the houses of Lieut. General Loricot (a past Governor of Mauritius) and Colonel and Lady Bell (with whom he is obliged ot leave some of his sketches), and to the Highland Regiment's Officers Mess. His taste is educated (he praises the relative cultivation and civilisation in the English colonies at Mauritius and the Cape and bemoans the sorry state of the French colony of Bourbon), and his pastimes aristocratic (writing and sketching, collecting works of art, botanizing and penning a brief critique of Cape wines) and he is not sorry to return to the cradle of civilisation: 'Brest d'abord caché par un monticule se développe peu à peu à nos yeux comme une coulisse à l'opéra. Voilà enfin un aspect Européen; des champs de blé, des prairies, des merveilles des cloches, un lointain vaporeux, en non plus ces montagnes et le ciel bleu ... des colonies avec une verdure crue et uniforme au milieu de laquelle sont jetées quelques baraques en planches - voilà la France que le sejour de Bourbon nous fesait tant désirer de revoir, enfin nous y voilà; au diable les Colonies et notamment Bourbon'

Henry Clifford de Meillon (active c. 1823-c.1856)

St Andrews Church, Cape Town

signed and inscribed 'H.C.De Meillon./S^t Andrew's Church. Cape Town.', watercolour, unframed
7 9/16 x 10in. (19.2 x 25.4cm.)

Lot Essay

De Meillon arrived in Cape Town in 1823 and is known to have produced a large number of small watercolours of scenes and costumes at the Cape for sale in the local shops. He is best known for the series of lithographs of Cape Town views made after fifteen of his drawings and included in the 'SA Almanac and Directory' (1832-5) and the present and following three lots are variants of these standard de Meillon views (see A. Gordon-Brown, Pictorial Africana, Cape Town, 1975, p. 146 and R.F. Kennedy, Catalogue of Prints in the Africana Museum, Johannesburg, 1975, I, D185, D186, D188 and D191)

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