Antiquarian Auctions

Auction #114 begins on 11 Apr 2024

Meiring, Hannes (artist) with text by G-M van der Waal and Wilhelm Grutter, in cooperation with Anna Jonker

Early Johannesburg. Its Buildings and its People (1986)

Published: Human & Rousseau, Cape Town and Pretoria, 1986

Edition: First

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Since his death in Stellenbosch last year, architect-artist Hannes Meiring's contribution to recording and conserving South African buildings has been even more widely recognised than previously. Although Pretoria and the Western Cape were his main stamping grounds, he did not neglect the rest of the country, and this little book, published to mark the centenary of Johannesburg, is a primer to the early days of Africa's greatest city.

It gives the lie to the recent political claim that "Commissioner Street should be renamed because no one knows who or what commissioner is being referred to" [!]. As Meiring's writer collaborators record early in the book, "From a tent pitched on the bare veld near the future Commissioner Street, the Mining Commissioner, Captain Carl von Brandis, read out the proclamation of the Witwatersrand goldfields on 20 September 1886." Commissioner Street was thus the first, or at least one of the first, streets of Johannesburg, whose gold, mining houses and stock exchange were the largest original contributors to the wealth of the strongest of Africa's economies.

The book covers:

The city that grew on Randjeslaagte, Johannesburg

On the farm Doornfontein

On the farm Langlaagte

On Braamfontein and Klipfontein

This is a very good copy. The back panel of its glazed printed paper-boards is lightly sunned at the top and fore edges; the binding is tight; the plain endpapers are unmarked and bright; the 144 pp of text and index, illustrated by six maps and Meiring's captivating pencil sketches, are in very good condition.

  • Jacket Condition: (Very good - printed glazed paper boards as issued)
  • Binding Condition: Very Good
  • Overall Condition: Very Good
  • Size: 250 x 180
  • Sold By: Fontein Books
  • Contact Person: Richard Proctor-Sims
  • Country: South Africa
  • Email: [email protected]
  • Telephone: 051 773 0050/048 079 546 4032
  • Preferred Payment Methods: Eft (South Africa), SWIFT (rest of world), or $ checks for US or Australian buyers
  • Trade Associations: AA Approved


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