Notes

Edinburgh-born Cathcart William Methven, architect, engineer and landscape artist, emigrated to South Africa in 1888 having been appointed Harbour Engineer-in-Chief at Port Natal. As civil and marine engineer he surveyed numerous ports and harbours in Kalk Bay, Mossel Bay, Port Elizabeth, Port Alfred, East London and Port St Johns. Outside his profession, his rigorous technical training, his natural talent, his extensive travel itinerary, and his interest in the natural splendour of his adopted country, not only made him one of our outstanding pre-World War One landscape painters, but also a vital pictorial historian. The following five lots, all from the Cape and the Natal Midlands, are fine examples from the artist’s South African oeuvre, and they show off his romantic palette, his preference for dramatic views, and his careful and beautiful topographical observations.

Literature

Nigel Hughes (2005). Views in Colonial Natal: A Select Catalogue Raisonné of the Southern African Paintings of Cathcart William Methven (1849–1925), illustrated in colour on page 114, no. 13.