Important Paintings, Furniture, Silver and Ceramics

Live Auction, 8 October 2009

Part II - Paintings, Watercolours, Prints and Sculpture

Sold for

ZAR 401 040
Lot 310
  • Fanie Eloff; Athlete Balancing on his Hands
  • Fanie Eloff; Athlete Balancing on his Hands
  • Fanie Eloff; Athlete Balancing on his Hands
  • Fanie Eloff; Athlete Balancing on his Hands
  • Fanie Eloff; Athlete Balancing on his Hands
  • Fanie Eloff; Athlete Balancing on his Hands


Lot Estimate
ZAR 80 000 - 100 000
Selling Price
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
ZAR 401 040

About this Item

South African 1885-1947
Athlete Balancing on his Hands

signed, foundry mark C Valsuani Cire Perdue

bronze with dark green patina
height: 103cm

Provenance

Acquired from the artist's Estate by the current owner's father, Pretoria, 1947  

Literature

Our Art, Vol 2, SA Association for the Advancement of Knowledge and Culture, Pretoria, 1961, pages 115 and 116

"Fanie Eloff was the grandson of President Paul Kruger.  Pierneef and Gerard Moerdyk were Fanie's school-fellows at the old Staatsmodelskool in Pretora....He spent the greater part of his creative life in Paris, returning to South Africa in 1941.  After his death in 1947, all the sculptures he had left behind in his Paris studio were shipped out here and a large memorial exhibition was held in Pretoria under the auspices of the South African Academy for Arts and Science......

Eloff wished to maintain the principle of art for art's sake, of the sovereignty of the artist, and of homage due to all creative work....

It is the artist's studies of figures in motion, executed in bronze, which, above all others, bear the unmistakable stamp of his individual style.   All his figures are characterized by spontaneity of expression, and Eloff achieves a delightful significance of form in which the static qualaity of his medium is completely forgotten." Dr FCL Bosman

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