Lot 351: BURCHELL, William John (1781-1863)

St.Helena and African Sketches: an album of sketches and watercolours, the majority taken on St.Helena and at the Cape, 1810-1811 including: A profile bust portrait of the artist (?) 29.7.1810; Lookout on St.Helena with the peaks of the Flagstaff and Sugarloaf below (a panorama across two sheets); RMS.Leopard, 19.7.1810, and Jar with two spouts, 29.7.1810; A Jar, 29.7.1810; View from Ladder hill across Jamestown to Deadwood and Longwood, 5.9.1810 (sheet extended on the right); Wagon and oxon, 5.9.1810; View from the footslopes of High Knoll accross Upper Jamestown to Alarm Forest, 5.9.1810 (a panorama accross two sheets); St.Helena: a cottage by a bamboo grove; two horses and a rider, 22.9.1810 (on a fragment of a leaf); Cape Town (sheet extended on the right); Two Cape views on the road behind Table Mountain, 9.3.1811 (both), (two views on one sheet); Two sketches of Hottertots, Wynberg, 14.3.11 on a smaller sheet tipped in); two sketches of a covered Oxwagon, 19.3.1811 and 26.3.1811; The Bath House at Zwartberg, 11.4.1811; A Cottage on a hillside, with two sketches of hills ('Babylonsche Toten' and 'Klein.....berg') on the reverse; Kistio Verticallatus 6 feet high [Swarteberg]; White poplars at Brandvlei, 14.4.1811 (on two sheets); A Man taking aim with a flintlock gun, 10.2.20; and 'Study of a flintlock gunstock, 10.2.20, oblong 8° (118x185mm) comtemporary sheep, manuscript paper title label on the spine (boards detached, crude repairs to joints).

[and:]
Mary BURCHELL after William John Burchell. Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa: sixteen pencil vignettes numbered in pencil, titled in ink on the mounts (by W.J. Burchell), with manuscript title page (by W.J. Burchell) 'Sixteen of the vignettes of the "Travels in Southern Africa' by Wm.J. Burchell copied by his sister Mary Burchell in 1822-1823 and 1824 from his drawings on the Wood Blocks/before they were engraved for publication, and of which seven belong (sic) to the first volume and five to the second volume, with four for the third volume which latter has never yet (1862) been published', 2° (400 x 245mm). Original grey wrappers (wrappers waterdamaged causing losses)

[with:]
An autograph letter signed by Burchell to 'Dr Greville', Fulham, 5 February 1825, a letter of introduction for his friend Mr Peene, who will be visiting Edinburgh, and referring to the sending of specimens, 2 pages, 4to, integral address leaf;
with a related pamphlet, and The South African Drawings of William J. Burchell, Johannesburg (1938), two volumes. (6)

PROVENANCE:
William John Burchell (contemporary ownership inscription on upper board dated 1810 and on upper paste down).
James Burchell (the artist's brother), Port Elizabeth, until 1844, and thence by descent. Sale (The Property of a Lady), Sotheby's, Johannesburg, 23 March 1987, lots 18 (album) and 19 (vignettes).

WILLIAM JOHN BURCHELL (1781-1863)
The son of a Fulham horticulturalist, Burchell spent five years at St. Helena, where he was appointed 'Schoolmaster of acting Botanist' by the East India Company, before arriving in Cape Town in late November 1810. He made drawings of Cape Town and vicinity, as far afield as Genadendal and Tulbagh, until 18 June 1811, when he started his journey into the interior. This journey, across the Karoo to Klaarwater (now Griquatown) and on to Lithako...and back by way of Kowie mouth and what is now known as the Garden Route, lasted until April 1815. He returned to England later in 1815 and spent the next ten years in arranging his botanical and zoological specimens, in propagating South Africa plants at Fulham and in writing his Travels in the interior of South Africa, v.1 published in 1822 and v.2 in 1824....[see lots 352-353]. The published Travels only carried the narrative to 3 August 1812; the journal of the later part of his expedition was never published'. (R.F. Kennedy, Catalogue of Pictures in the Africana Museum, Johannesburg, 1971, 1, (Supplement:A-G), p.42.)

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