Strauss & Co’s March ART online auction features a single artist session focusing exclusively on 19th-century British artist and landscape painter Thomas Bowler. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for collectors to acquire pieces directly from a collection curated by Dr. Frank Bradlow, Bowler’s biographer and a luminary in Africana collectables.
In 1965, Bradlow suggested placing a plaque on the Wale Street building where Bowler once lived, which was then the offices of a financial services company. “Oil paintings by Bowler are exceedingly rare. He worked primarily in watercolour, the favoured style of English landscape painters of the time. Bradlow recorded only a handful of oil paintings known to be in existence,” Wrigley explains.
These watercolours showcase the early development of streets and buildings in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth , as well as the bustling activity in the various Mosenthal-owned trading posts in outposts such as Graaff-Reinet, Murraysburg, and Hope Town. The first Mosenthal establishment in the Eastern Cape was their Port Elizabeth office. Bowler’s composition Port Elizabeth, from The Mosenthal Establishments commission , displays a diverse array of people, oxen, and dogs, providing a glimpse into a typical day in the city’s early history.
Other works of interest are a trio of striking landscapes by Vera Volschenk, each coming onto the market with attractive estimates: The Sleeping Beauty - Riversdale , Arbeidsgenot , and The Lagoon – Nature’s Valley .