The Disabled Gnu, Mooi River
signed and dated 'T BAINES MOOI RIVER/ LATITUDE 26.31 AFRICA/ MAY 26 1850' (lower right), inscribed 'THE DISABLED GNOO / MOOI RIVER MAY 25 1850' (lower left)
oil on card
25 x 34cm (9 13/16 x 13 3/8in).

Footnotes

Provenance
The collection of Eduard Mohr (1828-1876);
The collection of Major Aubrey Hilton of Harare;
Acquired by a private collector circa 1970;
By descent.

Baines gives a long account of a hunt in May 1850 in his African Journal. On 24 May he intercepted a herd of wilderbeests, shot at a bull, then followed the herd and "dispatched a fine young bull which had fallen disabled to the ground".

His two watercolours, and this oil sketch are incorrectly dated 26 May. The dead animals were brought back to camp on the morning of May 25 and Baines would have made his sketches before the animals were skinned and the flesh 'cut into strips... to be hereafter converted into biltong'.

Bibliography
Thomas Baines, Journal of Residence in Africa (1842-1853), v. 2. Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society, 1964.

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