Each 250 x 175 mm, unsigned, pencil on paper with some heightening with white gouache and now in and window mounts.
Only four of the thirteen sketches appear to have been published in volume II.
A Walz with a Hippopotamus (frontispiece),
Headlong Charge of a Wounded Elephant (page 4)
Nocturnal Adventure with Six Lions (page 116)
The Fate of Poor Hendrik (page 218).
There are a number of text references to other of the sketches but the illustrations were not used in the published work.
Dr Frank Bradlow, the renowned historian of 19th century South African art, gave the following opinion on the attribution of the sketches in 1997: ‘Although A.H. Palmer in his book The Life of Joseph Wolf, Animal Painter (Longmans Green 1895) does not list Gordon Cumming’s book Five Years’ of a Hunter’s life, as one of the books illustrated by Joseph Wolf, nevertheless a comparison of the original sketches bear a strong similarity to these in Andersson’s Lake Ngami (1856). Compare for instance the frontispiece “Lions Pulling Down a Giraffe” in Andersson’s book with “Anecdote of the Gemsbok” in this collection. Even more striking is the resemblance between “Oryx of Gemsbok” (page 279) in Lake Ngami with the original sketch “The Magnificent Old Black Sable” which refers to an incident described on page 266. The two pictures show a remarkable resemblance in style, in composition, in the posture of the animals, and even in the habitat.
‘An even more significant comparison can be made by taking Wolf’s illustration entitled “Sport” on page 135 of Palmer’s biography and comparing it with the original sketch in this collection of “Fearful Encounter with a Lioness” which is described on page 210. The dead lionesses in both sketches are lying on their backs in almost the same attitude and position. Although they are not identical they are similar enough to leave little room for doubt that they are by the same hand.’
Provenance: Sold by Reinhold Cassirer in 1982, art dealer and CEO of Sotheby’s South Africa, who states, ‘I found these sketches in Scotland and was verbally assured that their provenance is the House of Altyre, but I cannot substantiate this.’ Altyre was the family estate of the Gordon Cummings family for 800 years.
(https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/joseph-wolf) Joseph Wolf (1820-1899) German artist who specialized in natural history illustration. Trained in Koblenz and Darmstadt. Moved to the British Museum in 1848 and became the preferred illustrator for explorers and naturalists including David Livingstone, Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates. First exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1849.
