Cape Views and Costumes - Plus De Meillon's People of Colour & Brochure.

Cape Views and Costumes by Henry Clifford de Meillon is the third volume in the Brenthurst Series. It is an attractive work profusely illustrated with colourplates of De Meillon's water-colours which capture so well the charm of pre-Victorian Cape Town.

The artist H.C.de Meillon came to South Africa while a young Second Lieutenant of the Royal Navy as a member of Captain Owen's famous survey of the eastern coast of Africa. He was invalided out of the Navy at Simon's Town in 1823 as a result of having contracted malaria at Delagoa Bay. De Meillon then remained at the Cape where he put his able talents as a draughtsman to account.

This series of 23 water-colours which he painted of the buildings of Cape Town and of the 64 costume plates of the city's inhabitants displays the same affection for their subject which characterizes the work of Sir Charles D'Oyly and , 25 years later, of Thomas Bowler. The book constitutes a valuable social record of permanent worth.

De Meillon's work is represented in the Africana Museum, Johannesburg and Rust-en-Vreugd, Cape Town. Most of the water-colours reproduced in Cape Views and Costumes were acquired by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer in the 1930s and this publication of De Meillon's delightful paintings will be welcomed by a new generation of Africana collectors and art lovers.

850 copies published. 134 pages text with supporting illustrations.

Also included is the booklet by Robert C.- H.Snell, De Meillon's People of Colour, with  Brenthurst brochure for the main work.

FINE.