Notes

In addition to two historic towns (Louis Trichardt and Heidelberg) and four popular holiday resorts (Vaal River, Hartbeespoortdam, Klipriviersberg, and Apies River), Jacob Hendrik Pierneef also included four other scenic Transvaal locations in the famous Johannesburg Station panel cycle: Houtbos, Waterval Boven, Rustenburg Kloof, and Piernaar’s River.

Nick Coetzee notes that "Piernaar’s River, like the area around Meintjieskop, was one of Pierneef’s favourite haunts. It is an area on the river, north-east of Pretoria. At present there is a dam there. In the days that Pierneef used to visit the vicinity, it was still fairly unspoiled with low rocky embankments on the river ideal for camping and fishing. It is one of those spots that Pierneef chose to paint in the station panel. It is not clear whether the farm, Roodeplaat on which the present dam is situated, has any special connection with the railways (the railway to the north reached the nearest station of the same name in 1896) and tourism was certainly never particularly important in the area."¹

The present lot depicts a close-up of the centre of the view depicted in the Piernaar’s River station panel. The viewer is immediately confronted with the dramatic outcrop of rock and sheer cliff face at the scene, not a gentle expanse of landscape unfolding in front of the eye, so typical of many of Pierneef’s other paintings.

¹ N J Coetzee (1992) Pierneef, Land and Landscape: The Johannesburg Station Panels in Context, Johannesburg: CBM Publishing, unpaginated.

Provenance

Acquired from the artist and thence by descent.

Strauss & Co, Johannesburg, 7 November 2021, lot 157.