Helene Love-Allotey
Head of Department
Lot 37*
Anton van Wouw(South African, 1862-1945)Skapu Player, 1907 37 x 30 x 26 cm (14 9/16 x 11 13/16 x 10 1/4 in) (including base)
22 March 2023, 15:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £35,580 inc. premium
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Anton van Wouw (South African, 1862-1945)
Skapu Player, 1907
inscribed, signed and dated 'Joh.burg/A van Wouw/1907.sculpt' (to the base); further inscribed 'G. Nisini Fuse/ Roma' (lower back)
bronze
37 x 30 x 26 cm (14 9/16 x 11 13/16 x 10 1/4 in) (including base)
inscribed, signed and dated 'Joh.burg/A van Wouw/1907.sculpt' (to the base); further inscribed 'G. Nisini Fuse/ Roma' (lower back)
bronze
37 x 30 x 26 cm (14 9/16 x 11 13/16 x 10 1/4 in) (including base)
Footnotes
Literature
Duffey, A.E., Anton van Wouw: The Smaller Works, (Pretoria, 2008), another edition illustrated pp. 59-60
The Skapu Player was first exhibited in van Wouw's Johannesburg exhibition in 1908. The work "shows a young African man sitting cross-legged on a rock, playing his 'sekgapa' with a fiddlestick, while he absent-mindedly listens to his monotonous tune. His upper body is naked; he is only wearing wide trousers and is barefoot. The contrast between the sheen of the skin of the nude upper part of the body and the coarse texture of the flap trousers is heightened by the ingenious use of light and dark brown patinas." (A.E.Duffy,2008:pp. 59-60)
Working from life, Van Wouw created varied naturalistic forms performing tasks and activities of natural life such as hunting and, in instance, music in his bronze works. Assisted by Giovanni Nisini's dexterous European foundry, 'Nisini', Van Wouw was able to achieve the detailed and meticulously executed sensitivity of the human body. The present lot demonstrates very fine modelling, particularly evident in the fiddlestick in the figure's right hand, the way the long bow of the skapu is finely fixed to the calabash, and the detailing in the knot securing the trousers, all typical of the Roman castings of The Skapu Player.
Indeed, the present lot can be established as owning the qualities that Duffy prescribes as 'minute detailing but also and inner power and monumentality' that occupies the sculptor's opus.(A.E.Duffy,2008:p. 77)
Bibliography
A. E. Duffey, Anton van Wouw: The Smaller Works, (Pretoria, 2008)
