Cape landscapes
Sir John Herschel's sketches, 1834-1838
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In 1834, Sir John Herschel, perhaps the most celebrated astronomer of his time, arrived at the Cape of Good Hope to spend four years observing the southern sky. Among his many other talents he was an accomplished artist, skilled in the use of an optical device known as a camera lucida. During these four years Herschel produced more than a hundred exquisite landscape sketches, some depicting the Feldhausen estate in the suburb of Wynberg, where he and his family lived, others meticulously recording scenes that enlivened his trips to Cape Point, to Table Mountain, to Hout Bay and to places in the farther reaches. Among the latter were Caledon, Franschhoek, Stellenbosch and Paarl. These Herschel landscape drawings are an almost unmatched contribution to the artistic and historical record of the Cape in the early nineteenth century. They are reproduced in this title, together with a narrative text and background material that firmly set the illustrations in their social and geographical context. The result is an evocative picture of the Cape Peninsula and its environs at a time when they were still largely wild.
