The Kafirs Illustrated

The Kafirs Illustrated:
A Facsimile Reprint of the Original 1849 Edition of Hand-coloured Lithographs
George French Angas; with a new introduction by Frank R. Bradlow
Cape Town: A. A. Balkema, 1974
Smithsonian Libraries

Originally published in 1849, The Kafirs Illustrated is a folio volume containing thirty plates of hand-colored lithographs along with eleven wood engravings interspersed throughout the text.  The prints were made from watercolor paintings by George French Angas, which he based on first-hand observation of South African peoples and landscapes.[1]  From the thirty original watercolors, Angas himself drew and lithographed fifteen plates on the stone.  Eleven of these have the Latin inscription “del. et lithog.,” (delineated and lithographed), while the other four are inscribed “From nature and on stone by George French Angas.”  The plates which Angas lithographed himself tend to concentrate on the human figure.

British Lithography at Its Peak

Angas also had collaborators who worked on the production.  The British artist Joseph Needham lithographed twelve plates, mostly landscapes, by copying Angas’s original watercolors in reverse using lithographic ink and chalk.  A plate of an antelope was lithographed by Waterhouse Hawkins, Angas’ former teacher.  W. Wing, a specialist of entomology, lithographed a plate of butterflies, while a painting of a native boy was lithographed by A. Laby.[2]  The lithographs were hand-colored or tinted; they are not chromolithographs.  Overall, these lithographs are state-of-the-art examples of British lithography at its peak in the mid-nineteenth century.  The album is an elegant and meticulous record of the peoples, landscapes, and wildlife of South Africa.

In addition to the watercolor paintings, Angas also made the sketches and drawings which were rendered into fifteen wood engravings that appear in the text.  The explanatory text was also written by Angas, which he regarded as important as the illustrations.  As was common in the nineteenth century, Angas’s folio was initially issued in parts and sold as such: first, in fifteen parts; then, in five parts; and finally, as a complete bound folio.

In 1974 a facsimile edition of the The Kafirs Illustrated was published by A. A. Balkema from a copy of the original 1849 edition held by the South African Library, Cape Town.  The facsimile edition, which is on view in this exhibition, contains color offset prints of Angas’s lithographs, along with drawings and texts by the author and a new introduction by Frank R. Bradlow.

Like the Victorian artists of his generation, Angas painted for European audiences to satisfy their demand for the picturesque and romantic ethnographic portrayals.[3]  Yet his paintings are remarkably accurate depictions of both the natural history and the people of South Africa.

Today Angas’s work is of immense research value as a source for the material culture of the people and the era it depicts.  The ethnographic pictures focus on the Zulu, Pondo, and Cape Malay.

The detailed scenes of domestic architecture, clothing, beadwork, ornaments, weaving, metal-working, weapons, food preparation, and domestic animals offer a wealth of ethnographic information.[4]  Of particular note is the portrait of Mpande, the king of the Zulu (Plate 11), a well-known historical figure.  The landscapes are of Cape Town, Durban, and their environs.

About the Artist

Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, George French Angas (1822-1886) was an artist and a traveler with a keen interest in people and in natural history.  He studied art under the natural history artist Waterhouse Hawkins.  After a visit to Australia and New Zealand in the 1840s, he produced and published three folios of lithographs made from his watercolor paintings:  South Australia Illustrated, The New Zealanders Illustrated, and Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand.  The success of these illustrated folios led to the South African one.  Following his travel to South Africa, he published The Kafirs Illustrated in 1849.  Back in Australia, he published other illustrated books: Six Views of the Gold Field of Ophir (Sydney, 1851) and Views of the Gold Regions of Australia (London, 1851).  After serving as secretary of the Australian Museum, he returned to London in 1863 where he devoted himself more to natural history than to art until his death.

Bibliography

Abbey, John Roland.   Travel in Aquatint and Lithography, 1770-1860: from the Library of J. R. Abbey: A Bibliographical Catalog.  San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1991.  See pages 291-293 for a discussion of Angas’s The Kafirs Illustrated.

Bank, Andrew.   “The Return of the Noble Savage: The Changing Image of Africans in Colonial Art, 1800-1850,” South African Historical Journal (Bloemfontein) 39 (1) (1998): pages 17-43.

Bradlow, Frank Rosslyn.   “George French Angas and the Album The Kafirs Illustrated.” In The Kafirs Illustrated: A Facsimile Reprint of the Original 1849 Edition of Hand-coloured Lithographs, pages 1-3.  Cape Town: A. A. Balkema, 1974.

Holdridge, Christopher.   “Laughing with Sam Sly: The Cultural Politics of Satire and Colonial British Identity in the Cape Colony, c. 1840-1850,” Kronos (Cape Town) no. 36 (November 2010): pages 28-53.

Kennedy, Reginald Frank.   “Angas: The Kafirs Illustrated.” Africana notes and news (Johannesburg) 20 (2) (June 1972): pages 48-51 and plate opposite page 56.

Leigh, Valerie.   “Comments of S. Klopper's George French Angas (re)presentation of the Zulu in the Kafirs illustrated.” South African Journal of Art and Architectural History (Pretoria) 1 (1) (February 1990): pages 26-36.

Tregenza, John.   George French Angas, Artist, Traveller and Naturalist 1822-1886.  Adelaide: Art Gallery Board of South Australia, 1980.

Viljoen, Russel.   “Sketching the Khoi: George French Angas and His Depiction of the Genadendal Khoikhoi Characters at the Cape of Good Hope, c.1847.” South African Journal of Art History (Bloemfontein) 22 (2) (2007): pages 277-290.

Wanless, Ann.   “Beadwork: The Pictorial Record.” SAMAB (Cape Town: South African Museum Association) 18 (2) (1988): pages 35-40.