Notes

In July 1812, the English artist William John Burchell (1781–1863) visited Litàkun (now Dithakong, north east of present-day Kuruman, in the Northern Cape), which was a sizeable town of mud huts inhabited by the Bachapin (BaTlhaping, BaTswana) people, under the chieftanship of Kgosi Mothibi, son of Molehebangwe. The subject of this portrait is Massisan, daughter of Mattivi and Kibbukiili, whom Burchell described as a beautiful girl of about twelve or thirteen years of age. Her hair was twisted “so as to give it the form of a cap”, and liberally smeared with "sibilo" (a shiny, black, iron-ore ochre paste). She was adorned with “two copper ear-drops in her left ear, and a brass button in her right. Round her neck hung several folds of thick cord made from the sinews and entrails of animals, and a necklace formed of many thin strings, neatly twisted of the inner bark of the acacia” (Burchell: 342). This portrait is the original that was translated into an engraving for reproduction in the second volume of Burchell's book Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa (1824).

In addition to being an artist, Burchell was a naturalist, astronomer, author and explorer. As a young man, he completed a botanical apprenticeship at Kew Gardens in London before sailing for the island of St. Helena in 1805 where he was employed as a merchant, school master and finally official botanist. He sailed to the Cape of Good Hope in 1810, and in June 1811, left Cape Town on an expedition into the interior which lasted until 1815 and covered more than 7 000 km. He kept detailed journals and field notes, made hundreds of sketches and paintings, and collected over 50 000 specimens of plants, animals and insects. He published his experiences in two volumes as Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, in 1822 and 1824. His collections were donated to Kew Gardens and the Oxford University Museum after his death.

Provenance

The Harvey Collection of Africana.

Literature

William J Burchell (1953, reprinted from the original edition of 1822-4) Travels in the Interior of South Africa, Volume II, London: The Batchworth Press. An engraving after this original painting appears as plate 5 on page 343.