Circa 1830

Watercolour on paper with an embossed border

Sheet 12.4 by 8.4 cm., image 9 by 5.3 cm.

Henry Clifford De Meillon was a British born South African artist who served in the British Navy, surveying the east coast of Africa in the early 19^th century. He was aboard the HMS Leven which, on its return in 1826, had succeeded in mapping 30,000 miles of coastline and producing 300 new charts but had lost nearly half of its original crew to tropical diseases. De Meillon had returned early, in 1823, to Simonstown on the Cape, himself a victim of malaria caught whilst in Mozambique.

His artistic talents were soon recognised in the Cape though he also turned his hand to supplementary work, such as tutoring the Cloete children at Groot Constantia for some months of 1825. His artistic renown is largely for his depiction of the scenes and people of Cape Town, with contributions of illustrations to George Thompsons “Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa” of 1827 and for series of smaller figure studies, such as the one that these two images would originally have formed a part.